Narrative cave art in Indonesia by 51,200 years ago

Previous dating research indicated that the Indonesian island of Sulawesi is host to some of the oldest known rock art1-3. That work was based on solution uranium-series (U-series) analysis of calcite deposits overlying rock art in the limestone caves of Maros-Pangkep, South Sulawesi1-3. Here we use a novel application of this approach-laser-ablation U-series imaging-to re-date some of the earliest cave art in this karst area and to determine the age of stylistically similar motifs at other Maros-Pangkep sites. This method provides enhanced spatial accuracy, resulting in older minimum ages for previously dated art. We show that a hunting scene from Leang Bulu' Sipong 4, which was originally dated using the previous approach to a minimum of 43,900 thousand years ago (ka)3, has a minimum age of 50.2 ± 2.2 ka, and so is at least 4,040 years older than thought. Using the imaging approach, we also assign a minimum age of 53.5 ± 2.3 ka to a newly described cave art scene at Leang Karampuang. Painted at least 51,200 years ago, this narrative composition, which depicts human-like figures interacting with a pig, is now the earliest known surviving example of representational art, and visual storytelling, in the world3. 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 recognized to date, as does their representation in composed scenes.

Earliest directly dated rock art from Patagonia reveals socioecological resilience to mid-Holocene climate

The timing for the evolution of the capacity to inscribe the landscape with rock art has global relevance. While this was an in-built capacity when Homo sapiens first colonized the Americas, the heterogeneous distribution of rock art shows that it was a facultative behavior arising under unknown socioecological conditions. Patagonia was the last region to be explored by humans. While its rock art is globally important, it remains largely undated by absolute methods. We report the earliest set of directly radiocarbon-dated rock art motifs from the archaeological site Cueva Huenul 1 (northwestern Patagonia, Argentina), starting at 8.2 thousand years before the present (ka B.P.), predating previous records by several millennia, and encompassing over 3 ka (~130 human generations). This mid-Holocene "rock art emergence" phase overlaps with extremely arid conditions and a human demographic stasis. We suggest that this diachronic rock art emerged as part of a resilient response to ecological stress by highly mobile and low-density populations.

The Sustainability of Rock Art: Preservation and Research

Rock art is a widespread cultural heritage, representing an immovable element of the material culture created on natural rocky supports. Paintings and petroglyphs can be found within caves and rock shelters or in open-air contexts and for that reason they are not isolated from the processes acting at the Earth surface. Consequently, rock art represents a sort of ecosystem because it is part of the complex and multidirectional interplay between the host rock, pigments, environmental parameters, and microbial communities. Such complexity results in several processes affecting rock art; some of them contribute to its destruction, others to its preservation. To understand the effects of such processes an interdisciplinary scientific approach is needed. In this contribution, we discuss the many processes acting at the rock interface—where rock art is present—and the multifaceted possibilities of scientific investigations—non-invasive or invasive—offered by the STEM disciplines. Finally, we suggest a sustainable approach to investigating rock art allowing to understand its production as well as its preservation and eventually suggest strategies to mitigate the risks threatening its stability.

Ages for Australia's oldest rock paintings

Naturalistic depictions of animals are a common subject for the world's oldest dated rock art, including wild bovids in Indonesia and lions in France's Chauvet Cave. The oldest known Australian Aboriginal figurative rock paintings also commonly depict naturalistic animals but, until now, quantitative dating was lacking. Here, we present 27 radiocarbon dates on mud wasp nests that constrain the ages of 16 motifs from this earliest known phase of rock painting in the Australian Kimberley region. These initial results suggest that paintings in this style proliferated between 17,000 and 13,000 years ago. Notably, one painting of a kangaroo is securely dated to between 17,500 and 17,100 years on the basis of the ages of three overlying and three underlying wasp nests. This is the oldest radiometrically dated in situ rock painting so far reported in Australia.

A Paleolithic bird figurine from the Lingjing site, Henan, China

The recent identification of cave paintings dated to 42-40 ka BP in Borneo and Sulawesi highlights the antiquity of painted representations in this region. However, no instances of three-dimensional portable art, well attested in Europe since at least 40 ka BP, were documented thus far in East Asia prior to the Neolithic. Here, we report the discovery of an exceptionally well-preserved miniature carving of a standing bird from the site of Lingjing, Henan, China. Microscopic and microtomographic analyses of the figurine and the study of bone fragments from the same context reveal the object was made of bone blackened by heating and carefully carved with four techniques that left diagnostic traces on the entire surface of the object. Critical analysis of the site's research history and stratigraphy, the cultural remains associated with the figurine and those recovered from the other archeological layers, as well as twenty-eight radiometric ages obtained on associated archeological items, including one provided by a bone fragment worked with the same technique recorded on the object, suggest a Late Paleolithic origin for the carving, with a probable age estimated to 13,500 years old. The carving, which predates previously known comparable instances from this region by 8,500 years, demonstrates that three-dimensional avian representations were part of East Asian Late Pleistocene cultural repertoires and identifies technological and stylistic peculiarities distinguishing this newly discovered art tradition from previous and contemporary examples found in Western Europe and Siberia.

Archaeology and art in context: Excavations at the Gunu Site Complex, Northwest Kimberley, Western Australia

The Kimberley region of Western Australia is one of the largest and most diverse rock art provenances in the world, with a complex stylistic sequence spanning at least 16 ka, culminating in the modern art-making of the Wunumbal people. The Gunu Site Complex, in the remote Mitchell River region of the northwest Kimberley, is one of many local expressions of the Kimberley rock art sequence. Here we report excavations at two sites in this complex: Gunu Rock, a sand sheet adjacent to rock art panels; and Gunu Cave, a floor deposit within an extensive rockshelter. Excavations at Gunu Rock provide evidence for two phases of occupation, the first from 7-8 to 2.7 ka, and the second from 1064 cal BP. Excavations at Gunu Rock provide evidence for occupation from the end of the second phase to the recent past. Stone for tools in the early phase were procured from a variety of sources, but quartz crystal reduction dominated the second occupation phase. Small quartz crystals were reduced by freehand percussion to provide small flake tools and blanks for manufacturing small points called nguni by the Wunambal people today. Quartz crystals were prominent in historic ritual practices associated with the Wanjina belief system. Complex methods of making bifacially-thinned and pressure flaked quartzite projectile points emerged after 2.7 ka. Ochre pigments were common in both occupation phases, but evidence for occupation contemporaneous with the putative age of the oldest rock art styles was not discovered in the excavations. Our results show that developing a complete understanding of rock art production and local occupation patterns requires paired excavations inside and outside of the rockshelters that dominate the Kimberley.

12,000-Year-old Aboriginal rock art from the Kimberley region, Western Australia

The Kimberley region in Western Australia hosts one of the world's most substantial bodies of indigenous rock art thought to extend in a series of stylistic or iconographic phases from the present day back into the Pleistocene. As with other rock art worldwide, the older styles have proven notoriously difficult to date quantitatively, requiring new scientific approaches. Here, we present the radiocarbon ages of 24 mud wasp nests that were either over or under pigment from 21 anthropomorphic motifs of the Gwion style (previously referred to as "Bradshaws") from the middle of the relative stylistic sequence. We demonstrate that while one date suggests a minimum age of c. 17 ka for one motif, most of the dates support a hypothesis that these Gwion paintings were produced in a relatively narrow period around 12,000 years ago.

When did Homo sapiens first reach Southeast Asia and Sahul?

Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens, AMH) began spreading across Eurasia from Africa and adjacent Southwest Asia about 50,000-55,000 years ago (ca 50-55 ka). Some have argued that human genetic, fossil, and archaeological data indicate one or more prior dispersals, possibly as early as 120 ka. A recently reported age estimate of 65 ka for Madjedbebe, an archaeological site in northern Sahul (Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea), if correct, offers what might be the strongest support yet presented for a pre-55-ka African AMH exodus. We review evidence for AMH arrival on an arc spanning South China through Sahul and then evaluate data from Madjedbebe. We find that an age estimate of >50 ka for this site is unlikely to be valid. While AMH may have moved far beyond Africa well before 50-55 ka, data from the region of interest offered in support of this idea are not compelling.