March 2020, ScientificAmerican.com 71record holder for oldest figurative artwork—
a 40,000-year-old painting of a cowlike
animal found in a cave in Borneo—by sev-
eral thousand years. It would also beat
the 39,000- to 40,000-year-old Löwen-
mensch (“lion man”) figurine from Ger-
many, which has long held pride of place
as the earliest therianthrope, as well as a
17,000-year-old hunting scene from
France’s famed Lascaux Cave.
The geographic location of the painting
is significant. Although experts have long
recognized that hu mans originated in Africa,
“Europe was once thought of as a ‘finishing school’
for humanity,” says archaeologist April Nowell of the
University of Victoria in Canada, because all the old-
est known examples of art and other sophisticated
be haviors were found there. But in reality, the pat-
tern of discoveries just reflected the disproportion-
ate amount of archaeological research that was be -
ing carried out in Europe, especially in France. “This
new discovery adds to an already rich record of early
and varied rock art from [Indonesia and Australia]
and underscores the importance of conducting re -
search outside Europe,” Nowell says.The position of the newfound painting,
in a cave whose entrance some 23 feet
above the ground is hard for modern vis-
itors to access without a ladder or
climbing equipment, is also intriguing.
In Europe, early cave paintings are
often found in deep, pitch-dark passag-
es that would have been difficult to get
to and work in, which suggests that
these places perhaps had special meaning
to the artists. Brumm notes that in Sulawe-
si, ancient images are mostly found near the
entrances to caves and rock-shelters, so they
occur in the light zone, not the dark one. But as in
the case of the Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 painting, they
were created in high, hard-to-reach caves and niches
in the region’s limestone towers and cliff faces.
“Apart from the art, these sites otherwise show no
evidence for human habitation, and we assume
ancient people used them just for image making,”
Brumm says. “Why, we don’t know. But perhaps cre-
ating cave art in such inaccessible, liminal locations
high above the ground surface had some sort of
deeper cultural and symbolic significance.” He adds
KIM NEWMAN ( that to reach these spots, the artists presumably had
1, 2
)
Map by Mapping SpecialistsINDONESIALeang Bulu’
Sipong 4CAVE PAINTING
was discovered by
archaeologists at
a site called Leang
Bulu’ Sipong 4
on the Indonesian
island of Sulawesi
( 1 ). The entrance
to the cave, locat
ed high above the
ground, is difficult
to access ( 2 ).1 2© 2020 Scientific American