Incredible Hand Stencil With Claw-Like Fingers Could Be Oldest Known Cave Art

Researchers in Indonesia have identified what may be the oldest rock art known to science—a hand stencil on a wall of a limestone cave on Muna, an island off the bigger island of Sulawesi.

In a study published today in Nature, researchers dated the hand stencil to at least 67,800 years old—about 1,100 years older than a similar Neanderthal-made stencil in Spain, now (potentially) the second-oldest known artwork. If confirmed, the stencil would be the earliest known reliably dated example of cave art. The research sheds light on early human migration to Sahul (a bygone continent that once included Australia and New Guinea), but other researchers are cautious about the dating results.

The hand stencil, modified to emphasize the shape, dates to a minimum of 67,800 years ago. © Maxime Aubert

“Art painted on rock by our ancestors thousands of years ago provides the most spectacular early example of being human—creating art is a very human trait with which we can easily identify,” Kira Westaway of Macquarie University’s School of Natural Sciences, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Gizmodo. “Rock art is the closest evidence we have to understand our ancestors, but this understanding is limited by the difficulty in dating the art—so this type of systematic research of exploration, survey, and robust dating is vital to improve our understanding of these early artists.”

Implications for human movement

The hand stencil on Muna is unique—the fingers were intentionally made thinner, akin to claws. What’s more, researchers found that ancient people consistently made art in this particular cave for a very long time, at least 35,000 years up to around 20,000 years ago. The researchers also identified a number of other artworks throughout Southeast Sulawesi, including other hand stencils and a human figure.

“It is now evident from our new phase of research that Sulawesi was home to one of the world’s richest and most longstanding artistic cultures, one with origins in the earliest history of human occupation of the island at least 67,800 years ago,” Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist and geochemist at the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, said in a university statement. Aubert was also a co-leader of the study.

According to Adhi Agus Oktaviana, a co-author of the study and a rock art specialist at Indonesia’s national research and innovation agency (BRIN), the recently described Sulawesi paintings strongly inform knowledge of early Australian Aboriginal cultural history. The artists were probably members of the population that eventually dispersed throughout the region and arrived in Australia, he explained in the statement.

Shinatria Adhityatama, one of the researchers, in one of the investigated caves. © Maxime Aubert

The hand stencil’s dating also holds implications for debates over when and how people first arrived in Sahul. Oktaviana said the finding bolsters the “long chronology model,” according to which humans first reached Sahul at least 65,000 years ago. The “short chronology model” dates it to around 50,000 years ago. Southern Cross University’s Renaud Joannes-Boyau, co-leader of the study, adds that the rock art’s date represents the “oldest direct evidence” of modern humans on the northern migration route to New Guinea through Sulawesi and the “Spice Islands.” That’s in contrast to the other primary migration route hypothesized—the southern path.

Indirect dating

To date the particular hand stencil in question, the researchers dated the calcite on top of it, allowing them to infer the minimum age of the artwork beneath it. Paul Bahn, however, a British expert in prehistoric rock art who did not participate in the study, argues against the significance of minimum ages.

Minimum ages “date the formation of calcite, not the application of the pigment beneath it. So in this case, the [67,800 years] obtained for the hand stencil may mean that the stencil was made just a few years before that, or several or many millennia before that,” he told Gizmodo. “And the same applies to the other Indonesian and Spanish dates. We do not yet know the true ages of any of this cave art. There is little point in comparing minimal ages, so it is largely meaningless and pointless to claim that this is the earliest minimal age ever found for rock art!”

Siyakha Mguni, senior lecturer in subjects including rock art at the University of Cape Town, says that more research is necessary to confirm the new date. However, if it turns out to be right, “the discovery carries enormous implications in archaeology that will bring about a shift of attention away from southwestern Europe, particularly France and Spain, which has long been regarded as the global centre of parietal [wall] art advance and the touchstone of the oldest and finest representational art forms,” he explained to Gizmodo. Mguni also did not participate in the study. “Locating a new centre in Eurasia is indeed a radical shift!”