Cave painting

Not to be confused with rock art, the broader term which includes human-made markings on all natural surfaces.
Cueva de las Manos, Perito Moreno, Argentina. The art in the cave is dated between 7,300 BC and 700 AD;[a] stenciled, mostly left hands are shown.[3][4]

In archaeology, cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin. These paintings were often created by Homo sapiens, but also Denisovans and Neanderthals; other species in the same Homo genus. Discussion around prehistoric art is important in understanding the history of the Homo sapiens species and how Homo sapiens have come to have unique abstract thoughts. Some point to these prehistoric paintings as possible examples of creativity, spirituality, and sentimental thinking in prehistoric humans.

The oldest known are more than 40,000 years old (art of the Upper Paleolithic) and found in the caves in the district of Maros (Sulawesi, Indonesia). The oldest are often constructed from hand stencils and simple geometric shapes.[5][b] More recently, in 2021, cave art of a pig found in Sulawesi, Indonesia, and dated to over 45,500 years ago, has been reported.[7][8]

A 2018 study claimed an age of 64,000 years for the oldest examples of non-figurative cave art in the Iberian Peninsula. Represented by three red non-figurative symbols found in the caves of Maltravieso, Ardales and La Pasiega, Spain, these predate the appearance of modern humans in Europe by at least 20,000 years and thus must have been made by Neanderthals rather than modern humans.[9]

In November 2018, scientists reported the discovery of the then-oldest known figurative art painting, over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old, of an unknown animal, in the cave of Lubang Jeriji Saléh on the Indonesian island of Borneo.[10][11] In December 2019, cave paintings portraying pig hunting within the Maros-Pangkep karst region in Sulawesi were discovered to be even older, with an estimated age of at least 43,900 years. This finding was recognized as "the oldest known depiction of storytelling and the earliest instance of figurative art in human history."[12][13] On July 3, 2024, the journal Nature published research findings indicating that the cave paintings which depict anthropomorphic figures interacting with a pig and measure 36 by 15 inches (91 by 38 cm) in Leang Karampuang are approximately 51,200 years old, establishing them as the oldest known paintings in the world.[14][15]

  1. ^ World Heritage Sites: a Complete Guide to 1007 UNESCO World Heritage Sites (6th ed.). UNESCO Publishing. 2014. p. 607. ISBN 978-1-77085-640-0. OCLC 910986576.
  2. ^ UNESCO World Heritage Centre. "Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Archived from the original on 2021-04-14. Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  3. ^ Art & Place: Site-Specific Art of the Americas. Editorial Director: Amanda Renshaw; Text & Expertise provided by Daniel Arsenault et al. Phaidon Press. 2013. pp. 354–355. ISBN 978-0-7148-6551-5. OCLC 865298990. Archived from the original on 2021-10-29. Retrieved 2021-03-27.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :9 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ M. Aubert et al., "Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia", Nature vol. 514, pp. 223–227 (9 October 2014). "using uranium-series dating of coralloid speleothems directly associated with 12 human hand stencils and two figurative animal depictions from seven cave sites in the Maros karsts of Sulawesi, we show that rock art traditions on this Indonesian island are at least compatible in age with the oldest European art. The earliest dated image from Maros, with a minimum age of 39.9 kyr, is now the oldest known hand stencil in the world. In addition, a painting of a babirusa ('pig-deer') made at least 35.4 kyr ago is among the earliest dated figurative depictions worldwide, if not the earliest one. Among the implications, it can now be demonstrated that humans were producing rock art by ~40 kyr ago at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world."
  6. ^ Bob McDonald (September 24, 2021). "200,000-year-old handprints may be the world's oldest artwork, scientists say". cbc.ca. CBC Radio. Retrieved 2024-05-09.
  7. ^ Brumm, Adam; Oktaviana, Adhi Agus; Burhan, Basran; Hakim, Budianto; Lebe, Rustan; Zhao, Jian-xin; Sulistyarto, Priyatno Hadi; Ririmasse, Marlon; Adhityatama, Shinatria; Sumantri, Iwan; Aubert, Maxime (2021-01-01). "Oldest cave art found in Sulawesi". Science Advances. 7 (3): eabd4648. Bibcode:2021SciA....7.4648B. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abd4648. ISSN 2375-2548. PMC 7806210. PMID 33523879.
  8. ^ Ferreira, Becky (January 13, 2021). "Pig Painting May Be World's Oldest Cave Art Yet, Archaeologists Say – The depiction of the animal on an Indonesian island is at least 45,500 years old, the researchers say". The New York Times. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  9. ^ D. L. Hoffmann; C.D. Standish; M. García-Diez; P.B. Pettitt; J. A. Milton; J. Zilhão; J.J. Alcolea-González; P. Cantalejo-Duarte; H. Collado; R. de Balbín; M. Lorblanchet; J. Ramos-Muñoz; G.-Ch. Weniger; A.W.G. Pike (2018). "U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art". Science. 359 (6378): 912–915. Bibcode:2018Sci...359..912H. doi:10.1126/science.aap7778. hdl:10498/21578. PMID 29472483. "we present dating results for three sites in Spain that show that cave art emerged in Iberia substantially earlier than previously thought. Uranium-thorium (U-Th) dates on carbonate crusts overlying paintings provide minimum ages for a red linear motif in La Pasiega (Cantabria), a hand stencil in Maltravieso (Extremadura), and red-painted speleothems in Ardales (Andalucía). Collectively, these results show that cave art in Iberia is older than 64.8 thousand years (ka). This cave art is the earliest dated so far and predates, by at least 20 ka, the arrival of modern humans in Europe, which implies Neandertal authorship."
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference NYT-20181107-cz was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference NAT-20181107 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Aubert, M.; et al. (11 December 2019). "Earliest hunting scene in prehistoric art". Nature. 576 (7787): 442–445. Bibcode:2019Natur.576..442A. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1806-y. PMID 31827284. S2CID 209311825.
  13. ^ Ferreira, Becky (11 December 2019). "Mythical Beings May Be Earliest Imaginative Cave Art by Humans – The paintings on an Indonesian island are at least 43,900 years old and depict humanoid figures with animal-like features in a hunting scene". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 December 2019.
  14. ^ Oktaviana, Adhi Agus; Joannes-Boyau, Renaud; Hakim, Budianto; Burhan, Basran; Sardi, Ratno; Adhityatama, Shinatria; Hamrullah; Sumantri, Iwan; Tang, M.; Lebe, Rustan; Ilyas, Imran; Abbas, Abdullah; Jusdi, Andi; Mahardian, Dewangga Eka; Noerwidi, Sofwan (2024-07-03). "Narrative cave art in Indonesia by 51,200 years ago". Nature. 631 (8022): 814–818. Bibcode:2024Natur.631..814O. doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07541-7. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 11269172. PMID 38961284.
  15. ^ Harris, Garreth (2024-07-04). "Oldest example of figurative art found in Indonesian cave". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 2024-07-05.


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