Everyone loves a good story from the Iliad to Lord of the Rings the stories we tell have captured our
imaginations for millennia and served as ways to express our humanity but when did we start
telling them the discovery of the world's oldest known art hidden deep in a cave in Indonesia
might hold the key what can this cave art tell us about not only our capacity for storytelling but
our development as human beings the world's oldest art discovered in caves in Indonesia is rewriting
what we know about human cognition human animal hybrids hunting extinct animals mysteriously
coat the walls deep in a remote cave it's a stunning priceless find who were these people
why were they compelled to create this almost psychedelic artwork
and how did people who live nearly 50 000 years ago even have the mental capacity to make it
Sulawesi rewriting history a series of discoveries in Sulawesi Indonesia between 2017 and 2019 has
revealed cave art that is at least 45 000 years old older than any other cave art found today
the find is extra exciting because prior to Sulawesi archaeologists thought that all
the oldest cave art was located in western Europe astonishingly the artwork is five to ten thousand
years older than any of the oldest paintings found in caves across Spain and France the fact that
such ancient art exists in Indonesia has led to the startling realization that complex thought and
expression the building blocks for spirituality and religion didn't develop in the west first
and then spread east instead spirituality and religion may have spread the other way
around or else emerged from multiple places at once and far earlier than previously thought
there are two cave art sites in Sulawesi the first in liang te dangnay cave is an image of three wild
pigs two of the pigs appear to be fighting but the images are almost completely deteriorated
by radiocarbon dating the calcium buildup over the red ochre pigment used as paint scientists
estimate the pigs were drawn 45 000 years ago however the red ochre itself can be dated so it's
possible the paintings are even older Adam Broome an archaeologist who was part of the team that
discovered the site said he was struck dumb by the fine and noted that it may constitute the most
ancient figurative artwork known to archaeology for the less artistically inclined figurative
art just means drawing what you see for example if you were to see a tree you are to draw a tree
there are many instances of early figurative cave art around the world
that the art in liang tidenge cave is the oldest example found so far but what they discovered in
the other cave nearby is even more extraordinary half-man half-beast the birth of symbolic thought
the second cave named liang bulu sipong is home to the world's oldest recorded story it depicts
a hunting scene a group of people carrying what appear to be weapons and ropes surrounds a group
of animals which includes pigs and a species of dwarf buffalo the same radiocarbon dating
technique revealed that this artwork is 44 000 years old nearly as old as the pig painted in
the neighboring cave it could be considered figurative arts a literal narration of a hunt
except for one thing the individuals painted are hybrids of people and animals one has an elongated
snout another has a bird-like bee and another has a tail these images are far from figurative
they represent our capacity to imagine things that don't exist in nature to think symbolically
and to tell stories this was a monumental development for our species narratives allow
us to reach beyond the limits of our lives to convey an experience without the actual
physical risk that accompanies the experience a risk like hunting a buffalo for example
but pairing narrative with human animal hybrids is the stuff of mythology it's what religions are
born from the cave art at Sulawesi is remarkable because it is evidence that humans have been
doing this for far longer than we thought the technical term for a human animal hybrid
is therianthrope there are many examples of them throughout ancient and modern history werewolves
medusa minotaurs and the Egyptian god Anubis are all therianthropes the list can go on and on
before Sulawesi the oldest known therianthropic representation was a sculpture known as the
lion man it was discovered in nineteen thirty nine in stardom holy cave in southwest Germany
carved from mammoth ivory the one foot tall statuette has the body of a man and the head
of a lion it was found along with several other lion-headed carvings at the site which has led
archaeologists to speculate that the big cats had a spiritual maybe totemic significance for the
people in the region at 38 000 years old it is the oldest therianthropic statue ever found then there
is lascaux cave in southwestern France dubbed the sistine chapel of prehistory because of the beauty
of the paintings inside lasko's artwork is a mix of both figurative and therianthropic imagery
one of the most well-known images is the birdman a long lanky human body with the head of a bird
also in France the sorcerer blends a few different animals together and attaches them to a single
human figure the cave art in Sulawesi is more than twice as old as either the birdman or the sorcerer
why cave art the discovery at Sulawesi definitely pushes back our understanding of
how human cognition developed but we're still not sure when exactly this capacity to create things
like therianthropes and narratives first started it could have started with spoken language but no
one really knows when people first began talking anatomically modern humans homo sapien sapiens
entered the fossil record around 300 000 years ago even then we had all the right equipment
for speech but it remains a mystery whether or not we were communicating complex ideas
or had the ability to tell stories and imagine mythical creatures like birdman
sound doesn't leave a very traceable history that is it didn't until we invented recording devices
unfortunately recording didn't exist 45 000 years ago so we really have no idea how our ancient
ancestors communicated or what they talked about before they started painting the insides of caves
so why caves why did so many prehistoric cultures feel compelled to line the walls of these deep
dark caverns part of the reason may be that they provided shelter in the cold climates of western
europe particularly during the younger dry s a period of colder temperatures between 13 000 and
11 700 years ago also known as the little ice age the refuge that caves provided was a key part of
the survival of our species in many regions which may have made them ground zero for our evolution
towards symbolic thought however symbolic thought probably developed long before the younger dryas
evidence from africa suggests it developed long before the solo ac k bart as well
in 2018 archaeologists made a stunning discovery fragments of stone in belombos cave south Africa
had abstract geometrical patterns drawn on them in red ochre they were dated to over 70 000 years old
the find has led many to speculate that symbolic thought first developed in Africa and then spread
elsewhere mirroring the physical migration of humans archaeoacoustics so the question remains
why caves a recent theory that merges sound archaeology linguistics and evolutionary biology
also offers some compelling insights into why early humans were so enamored by caves
researchers studying archaeoacoustics have come up with the idea that cave paintings
are deeply connected to the acoustic nature of cave chambers paintings are often tucked deep
into the hard-to-reach areas of many caves and often just painted in one location when
there is plenty of extra wall space available this has led experts to believe there could be
a connection between the subject matter of the paintings and the acoustic property of the caves
for example in lasco and fontegum caves in France hoofed animals like bulls and bison are painted
in chambers which have a percussive echo that resembles the sounds of hoof beats in other
chambers that are more muffled there are images of big cats quieter animals for quieter chambers
when analyzed from the perspective of archaeoacoustics cave art is essentially
the transfer of external information from auditory to visual hearing a clap of thunder
or the echo of hoof beats and then translating the sound into a visual image it's a transfer
that reflects a fundamental advance in human capacity for symbolic thought the technical term
for this phenomenon is cross-modality information transfer the ability to take sounds and language
and transfer them into imagery could have had some kind of evolutionary advantage proponents of the
cross-modality information transfer theory have speculated that the special few who figured out
how to do it were held in high esteem and could have had higher rates of reproductive success
spreading their cognitive abilities throughout early human populations in africa
could the mysteries of human consciousness be revealed through these ancient cave paintings
there are still many unanswered questions when it comes to cave
art and what it could tell us about the evolution of our species but who knows
maybe there are more hidden clues in the dark recesses of our ancient history