A cave in Indonesia carries more than 40,000 years hiding the most ancient drawing found

Is an animal painted 10,000 years before the Altamira

A ‘hashtag’ makes 73.000 years ago, first drawing of humanity

“The oldest image that we have found is a large drawing of an animal, a type of wild cow that still lives today in the rainforests of Borneo, and has a minimum of 40,000 years. It is the first example of a work of art figurative-known in the world”. Professor Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Australia, is categorical about the results of their research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature. This archaeologist and geochemical spent years working alongside their colleagues from the National Research Centre for Indonesia to access and analyze different pictorial representations in the caves of remote Borneo and the neighboring island of Celebes.

speaking of figurative art, reference is made to the representation of objects by using recognizable images, unlike those that embody symbols or geometric figures. For a long time it had been assumed that the origin of this cognitive leap and cultural occurred in the depths of the caves of europe. However, the discovery that is now published in the journal Nature implies that in other regions of the planet was unfolding at the same time the capacity of reproducing reality through pictures. The time and the exact place where he was born that power, and how it came to occur at opposite ends of the world remains a mystery.

“it Seems that two of the first provinces to create rock art were developed in an era similar to during the Ice Age, but in two opposite corner of Eurasia: one in Europe and another in Indonesia,” explains professor Adam Brumm, an archaeologist from the Griffith University and co-author of the study. During the greater part of the last glaciation Borneo was still attached to the easternmost tip of the eurasian continent, but to more than 13,000 km of european regions that produced the most famous works of prehistoric art.

Among those examples are the paintings of the cave of Chauvet, in France, that would be between 35.300 and 38.800 years old, and represent rhinos, woolly, mammoths and bison. Also the figures of ivory found in caves of the German region of Swabia, are attributed to the same epoch. In Spain, dating recent set some of the figures represented on the ceiling of the polychromes in Altamira (Cantabria), by 35,600 years old, while the human forms of the cave of Tito Bustillo (Asturias) is estimated to have over 30,000 years. Examples are not figurative as the red disk from the cave in cantabria of the Castle date back more than 40,000 years.

human Figures dated to between 13.600 and 20,000 years PINDI SETIAWAN

In 2018, an article that took up the cover of Science revealed that some of the paintings in different caves in spain could have up to 65,000 years which, according to the authors, implies that they had to be created by neanderthals. Among them is one found in the same Cave of La Pasiega, a place known as The trap. However it has not been possible to date with accuracy the drawing of the bison and the horse that is included in the set.

Process of dating

One of the biggest challenges in the research of the rock art is, precisely, the dating. In this case the scientists have been based on the mineral deposits that cover the drawings: the water that flows along the walls of the caves form thin layers of calcite called coraloides (also known as popcorn from your form) that contain traces of uranium. The degree of radioactive decay of this element is the one that provides information about the time elapsed since its use, and that allows you to set a time-frame for such works.

The datings also show that a significant change took place within the local culture does about 20,000 years, giving rise to a new art style (which begins to include representations of human beings), in a time when the climate of the last glaciation was at its most extreme. “Who were these artists of the Ice Age from Borneo and what happened to them is a mystery,” says Pindi Setiawan, an archaeologist indonesian and a member of the same team.

Origin in Africa

it Is believed that the first inhabitants came to Borneo as part of a wave of migration out of Africa 60,000 years ago, probably through the Red Sea and the Arabian Peninsula. “Our research suggests that rock art spread from Borneo to Celebes, and other territories beyond Eurasia, perhaps arriving with the first peoples who colonized Australia,” explains Aubert, who also points out that the archipelago is a vital step between Asia and the australian continent.

In 2014, the same team published a first investigation which revealed similar samples in the neighboring island of Celebes, for the same period. Specifically, in the region of Kalimantan were found similar representations, some of them using the hands as a template (a technique known as stencil). According to the authors this suggests that in the archipelago there was already a tradition of rock art makes between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago.

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