Technology & Science
Indonesia’s Sulawesi Cave Yields 67,800-Year-Old Hand Stencil, Oldest Dated Rock Art
Uranium-series tests on calcite over a claw-shaped hand stencil in Sulawesi’s Liang Metanduno cave show humans making imagery at least 67,800 years ago—about 15,000 years earlier than any previously verified cave painting.
Focusing Facts
- Calcite ‘cave-popcorn’ covering the motif returned a minimum age of 67,800 ± 400 years, eclipsing the prior 51,200-year Sulawesi pig scene record.
- After spraying red ochre around the hand, the artist deliberately slimmed the finger outlines, producing a claw-like silhouette unique to Sulawesi rock art.
- Site lies on the northern island-hopping route toward Sahul, supporting genetic and archaeological claims that Homo sapiens reached Australia ≥65,000 years ago.
Context
Archaeology occasionally lurches forward when a single date rewrites maps—much as the 1994 discovery of France’s 36,000-year-old Chauvet cave upset Euro-centric views on Ice-Age art. This Sulawesi stencil, older than Europe’s famed El Castillo hands (≥40,800 BP) and even the disputed 66,700-year Maltravieso print, extends the proven timeline of symbolic behavior deep into Southeast Asia, echoing the 100,000-year ochred engravings from South Africa’s Blombos Cave that hinted creativity pre-dated any “European explosion.” The find meshes with emerging patterns: modern humans spread rapidly, carried artistic traditions, and innovated locally—here modifying finger shapes in a way unseen elsewhere. It also intersects with larger systems history: long-distance sea crossings and the peopling of Sahul, implying cognitive and technological capacities tens of millennia earlier than once thought. On a century horizon, such dates will keep migrating backward, but each earlier layer chips away at parochial narratives of where ‘culture’ began, nudging humanity toward a more polycentric, interconnected deep past.
Perspectives
Tabloid and mass-audience anglophone media
e.g., Daily Mail Online, The Star — The Sulawesi hand stencil conclusively shows modern humans were making sophisticated art 67,800 years ago, overturning Euro-centric timelines and proving an early northern migration route to Australia. Attention-grabbing headlines portray the find as definitive and history-shattering, a stance that boosts clicks but glosses over lingering scientific debates about dating precision and species attribution.
Indonesian national media
e.g., The Jakarta Post — The discovery highlights Indonesia as a cradle of ancient human creativity and underscores local scientists’ leadership in uncovering humanity’s earliest art and migration story toward Sahul. A tone of national pride can amplify Indonesia’s centrality while downplaying the shared international research effort and comparable finds elsewhere.
European public-service outlet
Euronews English — Researchers may have found the oldest cave art, but it remains uncertain whether modern humans or even Denisovans made the handprints, so big questions about authorship and meaning persist. By foregrounding alternative species and uncertainty, the coverage injects speculative intrigue that keeps audiences engaged yet may overstate how contested the authorship is relative to the study’s conclusions.