# Sulawesi cave painting dated to at least 51,200 years old is the world's oldest known figurative art, pushing the origin of representational imagery back 5,000 years > A pig-and-human figurative scene in the Leang Karampuang cave in South Sulawesi, Indonesia was dated by uranium-series analysis to at least 51,200 years before present, announced in Nature in July 2024; the finding, by an Australian-Indonesian team led by Griffith University, established Indonesia's Sulawesi island as the site of the world's oldest known figurative art and pushed back the earliest confirmed evidence of story-telling imagery by approximately 5,000 years, challenging the view that representational art originated in Europe **Meta:** type: event · date: 2024-07-03 · heads: The Long Game, What They're Not Saying · 6 takes · 5 lenses · 4 regions ## Summary A pig-and-human figurative scene painted on the wall of Leang Karampuang cave in the Maros-Pangkep karst region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia was dated by uranium-series analysis to at least 51,200 years before present, making it the world's oldest known figurative artwork. The finding was reported in Nature in July 2024 by a team led by Griffith University archaeologist Adam Brumm and Indonesian archaeologist Adhi Agus Oktaviana. The scene depicts three human-like figures (therianthropes) interacting with a Sulawesi warty pig, interpreted as the earliest confirmed narrative scene in the archaeological record. The minimum date of 51,200 years ago exceeds the previously oldest known figurative art, a pig image from the same Sulawesi region, which was dated to 45,500 years BP, and substantially predates the oldest known European cave art at approximately 36,000-40,000 years old (Chauvet Cave, France). ## The split The finding reinforced an accumulating body of evidence that southeast Asia, not Europe, was the primary locus of early figurative art development, with earlier Sulawesi discoveries dating back to 2014 having already shifted the field's understanding. Archaeologists in the Chauvet/Lascaux European tradition acknowledged the Southeast Asian priority but noted that European cave art shows greater technical sophistication and diversity in the same 35,000-40,000 BP window, suggesting parallel and possibly independent development of figurative traditions. Indonesian researchers and the Indonesian government emphasised the national significance of the Sulawesi karst heritage and called for UNESCO World Heritage expansion to include more of the Maros-Pangkep cave system's 300+ painted sites. ## By the numbers - 51,200 years: minimum age of Leang Karampuang figurative scene (uranium-series dating) - 3: human-like figures (therianthropes) in the scene interacting with one Sulawesi warty pig - 45,500 years: previous oldest known figurative art (also Sulawesi, also pig, reported 2021) - ~40,000 years: age of Chauvet Cave paintings, France (oldest major European figurative art) - 300+: cave sites with painted imagery in the Maros-Pangkep region of Sulawesi ## Why it matters The Sulawesi [Rock Cave Art](/en/entity/rock-cave-art) finds transform the understanding of when and where the fully modern human cognitive capacity for symbolic narrative emerged. The 51,200-year date places figurative storytelling art at the moment of maximum modern human dispersal out of Africa and through Southeast Asia, suggesting that the cognitive capacity for representational imagery was carried by modern humans out of Africa rather than evolving independently in Europe during the Upper Palaeolithic. This has implications for theories of language, ritual, social organisation, and cultural transmission among the earliest fully modern human populations. The Maros-Pangkep karst system contains hundreds of undated sites that may yield even older examples. ## What to watch - Whether uranium-series imaging of other Maros-Pangkep sites yields older figurative examples - Whether fieldwork in the Philippines, Borneo, New Guinea, or Australia, all traversed by the same dispersing populations, reveals comparable or earlier figurative art - UNESCO's response to Indonesian requests to extend World Heritage protection to the wider Maros-Pangkep cave network - Progress on climate-controlled conservation at the Sulawesi cave sites, which are vulnerable to rising humidity and speleothem growth obscuring the art ## Regional takes (batched by bias / lens) ### Leading peer-reviewed scientific journal; primary research article reporting the uranium-series dating methodology and findings at Leang Karampuang, South Sulawesi - **Nature (Griffith University research team)** (International, en) — The Nature paper by Adam Brumm, Adhi Agus Oktaviana, and colleagues used laser ablation uranium-series imaging on calcium carbonate deposits (speleothem) overlying the painted surfaces at Leang Karampuang cave in Maros-Pangkep, South Sulawesi. The minimum age of 51,200 years before present was established for a narrative scene depicting three human-like figures interacting with a Sulawesi warty pig. The method allowed dating of millimetre-scale deposits directly overlying the paint, providing a more precise minimum age than previous uranium-series analysis could achieve. The figure complex is interpreted as a narrative scene, making it the oldest known instance of storytelling imagery in the archaeological record. > "Nature: Leang Karampuang cave painting dated to at least 51,200 BP; uranium-series imaging of overlying speleothem; oldest known figurative narrative scene in the archaeological record." Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07541-7 ### UK broadsheet; wide-audience science reporting on the Nature paper and its implications for human cognitive evolution - **The Guardian** (United Kingdom, en) — The Guardian reported that the Sulawesi finding upended the long-held assumption that figurative art originated in Europe during the Upper Palaeolithic, approximately 35,000-40,000 years ago, in the caves of France (Chauvet, Lascaux) and Spain (Altamira). The dating established that people in Southeast Asia were creating figurative narrative art at least 5,000 years before the oldest known European examples. Scientists quoted by The Guardian noted that Sulawesi has a rich tradition of cave art in limestone karst formations that may yield even older examples as dating technology improves. > "Guardian: Sulawesi finding pushes figurative art back 5,000 years before oldest European examples; SE Asian cave art traditions may yield even older results." Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/03/indonesian-cave-painting-is-world-oldest-known-figurative-art ### Academic commentary platform; analysis by Griffith University archaeologists involved in the research, explaining the methodology and implications for the out-of-Africa dispersal timeline - **The Conversation (Australia)** (Australia, en) — The Conversation piece by members of the research team explained that the laser ablation uranium-series imaging method was developed specifically because cave paintings cannot be directly radiocarbon dated, requiring dating of the geological layers that form over the paint after it dries. The team explained that the 51,200-year date means the Leang Karampuang artists were modern humans who had migrated out of Africa and across Southeast Asia before leaving their earliest known figurative traces in a Sulawesi limestone cave. The authors noted that the Maros-Pangkep region of South Sulawesi has more than 300 known cave sites with painted imagery, most undated. > "The Conversation (research team): 300+ cave sites with imagery in Maros-Pangkep remain undated; artists were modern humans who had crossed Southeast Asia from Africa." Source: https://theconversation.com/worlds-oldest-known-cave-painting-found-in-indonesia-186090 ### US science magazine; contextualised the finding within the global history of cave art discovery and the evolving debate about where symbolic thought emerged - **National Geographic** (United States, en) — National Geographic contextualised the Sulawesi finding within the broader evidence for early symbolic behaviour by modern humans, noting that perforated shell beads and ochre use in Africa predate Leang Karampuang, but that figurative (representational) imagery is a cognitive threshold qualitatively distinct from abstract marking. The article quoted archaeologists who noted that future work in Southeast Asia, particularly in the Philippines, Borneo, and New Guinea, might yield even earlier figurative examples from communities who moved through the region approximately 50,000-65,000 years ago. > "National Geographic: Sulawesi painting marks the oldest known figurative art, distinct from earlier abstract marking; Philippines, Borneo, and New Guinea may hold older examples." Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/oldest-known-cave-art-found-in-indonesia ### unlabelled - **Bradshaw Foundation (Sulawesi rock art)** (International, en) — Source: https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/ancient_art/sulawesi/ - **Arkeonews (Indonesia cave art findings)** (International, en) — Source: https://arkeonews.net/oldest-known-cave-art-sulawesi-indonesia/ ## Across the graph - Entities: Rock Cave Art --- Canonical: https://rbtfl.xyz/en/n/indonesia-cave-art-51000-years