Exploring "Sacred Lands": World's Oldest Cave Art
The paintings on an Indonesian island are at least 43,900 years old and depict humanoid figures with animal-like features in a hunting scene.
photo by Ratno Sadri / New York Times
In December 2017, Hamrullah, an archaeologist on an Indonesian government survey, was exploring a cave system in Sulawesi, a large island in central Indonesia. He noticed a tantalizing opening in the ceiling above him. A skilled spelunker, Hamrullah (who only uses one name, like many Indonesians) climbed through the gap into an uncharted chamber. There, he laid eyes on a painting that is upending our understanding of prehistoric humans.
The dramatic panel of art, dating back at least 43,900 years, is “the oldest pictorial record of storytelling and the earliest figurative artwork in the world,” a group of scientists said in a paper published Dec. 11, 2019.
In the story told in the scene, eight figures approach wild pigs and anoas (dwarf buffaloes native to Sulawesi). For whoever painted these figures, they represented much more than ordinary human hunters. One appears to have a large beak while another has an appendage resembling a tail. In the language of archaeology, these are therianthropes, or characters that embody a mix of human and animal characteristics.
Given that these extraordinary characters are wielding thin objects that might represent ropes or spears, the painting may be an artistic demonstration of a game drive, a hunting strategy that involves guiding animals toward an ambush.
The otherworldly nature of the therianthropes also raises the possibility that they are mythical beings, or manifestations of “animal spirit helpers” that are common in shamanic beliefs, according to the study.
The rock art predates the next oldest representation of a character with a mix of human and animal figures, found in a cave in Germany, by about 4,000 years. It is also more than 20,000 years older than a hunting scene on the walls of France’s Lascaux Cave.
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From the 12/11/19 article by Becky Ferreria.
Read the full article on The New York Times.
Images by Ratno Sardi / New York Times.
