MOSCOW, July 5. The rock painting of a pig and two anthropomorphic figures from the Leang Karampuang cave on the island of Sulawesi is at least 51,200 years old and is the oldest known image in human history, an international team of scientists said in an article for the scientific journal Nature.
The cave painting was discovered in 2017, but its dating was not completed until early 2024. Scientists removed layers of limestone that had grown on the painting, evaporated it with a laser, and dated each layer based on the ratio of uranium to thorium formed during its decay.
«Dated to at least 51,200 years ago, this narrative composition <…> now becomes the earliest known example of fine art and visual storytelling in the world,» the article says.
According to scientists, the drawing depicts a pig and two anthropomorphic figures with three limbs. As one of the group's leaders, Griffith University professor Adam Brumm, told the Guardian, he often encountered the pig during excavations in the region. He suggested that the animal had enormous economic importance for local residents. However, while animals in cave art are always drawn with great care, people were traditionally painted in a less detailed manner, he added.
«Our findings show that figurative depictions of anthropomorphic figures and animals have deeper roots in the history of art modern man, which was previously believed,” the authors concluded.
Previously, the oldest image in history, another risk from the island of Sulawesi was considered — a hunting scene from the Leang Bulu Sipong cave 4. The authors of the new study dated it to at least 48 thousand years ago.
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