32 SCIENCE NEWS | February 13, 2021FROM TOP: MAXIME AUBERT; ADHI AGUS OKTAVIANASCIENCE VISUALIZEDInside a cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, scientists
have found one of the oldest known artistic depictions of a
real-world object or life-form. It’s a painting of a warty pig
(shown above), an animal still found on Sulawesi, that was
rendered on the cave’s back wall at least 45,500 years ago,
researchers report January 13 in Science Advances.
The discovery adds to evidence that “the first modern
human cave art traditions did not emerge in Ice Age Europe,
as long supposed, but perhaps earlier in Asia or even in Africa,
where our species evolved,” says study author Adam Brumm,
an archaeologist at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.
At least two other partially preserved pig paintings appear
on the cave wall near the newly dated figure, all executed in
red or dark red and purple mineral pigments (an enhanced
image shown below). The pigs appear to be confronting eachA painted pig takes cave art back in time
other in a scene of some sort, says archaeologist Iain Davidson
of the University of New England in Armidale, Australia. Sim-
ilarly positioned, painted animals dating to roughly 30,000
years ago or more appear in scenes in France’s Chauvet Cave,
says Davidson, who did not participate in the new study.
Like a painted hunting scene from at least 43,900 years
ago that was previously found in a separate Sulawesi cave
(SN: 1/18/20, p. 9), minimum age estimates for the pig paint-
ings are based on measures of radioactive uranium’s decay in
cauliflower-like mineral growths that formed in thin layers
over and underneath parts of the depictions.
The team considers it likely that Homo sapiens, rather than
a closely related species that lived in the region such as Homo
floresiensis (SN: 7/9/16, p. 6), painted on the Sulawesi cave
walls. — Bruce BowerPig 1
Pig 2Pig 3scivis.indd 32scivis.indd 32 1/27/21 9:45 AM1/27/21 9:45 AM