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(Credits: Brin / Google Arts & Culture)
To say the world has changed a lot in the past 51,000 years of human existence would be a gross understatement. The ways in which people lived all those years ago is virtually unimaginable in comparison to modern society, however, one thing that has seemingly never waned in thousands of years of societal development is humanity’s need for painting and creative expression.
These are some of the conclusions that can be drawn from a vitally important new discovery over in Indonesia. A team of Australian and Indonesian scientists working at the Leang Karampuang cave on the island of Sulawesi have unearthed a cave painting which they believe dates back some 51,200 years.
The painting itself is a figurative work, depicting a pig surrounded by three human figures, and was found scrawled on the ceiling of the Leang Karampuang cave. While the artwork hardly resembles the kind of piece that one would hang in their living room, the discovery of the work is vitally important for art historians and anthropologists alike.
Up until now, the earliest known examples of cave art came from the region now known as Europe, leading many to believe that the region had been the birthplace of creative expression. Now, though, the discovery of the Leang Karampuang piece has disproved those claims, as well as suggesting that figurative artwork has a much longer history than previously theorised.
Scientists involved in the discovery, working on a research paper for the Nature journal, wrote, “Our findings show that figurative portrayals of anthropomorphic figures and animals have a deeper origin in the history of modern human (Homo sapiens) image-making than recognised to date”.
The research team used revolutionary new technology to date the cave paintings. Reportedly, the team used a laser to help date calcium carbonate crystals which had formed naturally over the artwork, which allowed them to deduce the work is at least 51,200 years old.
To put the age of the cave paintings in context, they are thought to be roughly 46,700 years older than the pyramids of Giza or the erection of Stonehenge. The reality that these early artists were experiencing is unimaginably different to our current reality, which suggests that creativity is an inherent instinct of humanity.
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