Among the towering rock walls of an Indonesian island, archaeologists have discovered the earliest known example of artwork that tells a story, highlighting a “key development in art history” and a major milestone in the history of humankind.
The rock art is one of many found around the lowland karst landscape of South Sulawesi that have recently been studied by researchers from Griffith University and several Indonesian organizations.
They closely looked at a newly described painting that depicts three human-like figures interacting with a pig, described as an “enigmatic scene” that may represent “a hunting narrative.”
“The artist took care to position these four separate figurative images in spatial proximity to each other and portrayed them interacting in a way that allows an observer to infer actions taking place among the figures. The result is a composed scene that communicates a story,” Adam Brumm, study author and professor of archaeology at Griffith University in Brisbane, told IFLScience.
“These are sophisticated techniques that remain an important part of the extremely diverse artistic cultures and storytelling traditions found in all human societies today,” he added.
Imaging of the rock art panel at Leang Karampuang showing three human-like figures interacting with a pig.
Image credit: A A Oktaviana et al/Griffith University/Nature 2024
Along with being the oldest narrative scene reported to date, the study argues it’s the new record holder for the earliest known figurative cave art.
Using a novel dating technique, the research team’s work concluded the pigment was carefully applied to the rock wall at least 51,200 years ago. This is exceptionally old for a narrative artwork, since story-telling compositions didn’t become common in the world until around 14,000 to 11,000 years ago.
Over ~35,000 years ago, most art was limited to abstract shapes with no reference to the visible world. A few rock art scenes from this period can be considered figurative, meaning they depict recognizable figures and objects from physical reality, like humans and other animals. However, they are exceptionally rare – and, by no coincidence, found in abundance on the island of Sulawesi.
The advent of narrative artwork highlights an important landmark in the story of humans. As our societies and communities became more complex, so did our artwork; starting from abstract shapes and squiggles that developed into figurative depictions that not only represented reality but also held deep meaning.
One might wonder, why was Sulawesi the location of this apparent development? However, it’s likely that equally complex artworks were being created elsewhere around this time, if not before. The island was not unique, except in the sense that the paintings were lucky enough to be preserved and identified here.
“It’s probably a preservation bias: that is, humans were using similar forms of image-making elsewhere in the world at an equivalent period of time and indeed earlier, but the evidence either hasn’t survived or is it as yet undiscovered,” Professor Brumm explained.
“The Sulawesi art is now the oldest known surviving evidence of this key development in art history, but it probably had its ultimate beginnings somewhere in Africa where our species evolved,” he noted.
The study is published in the journal Nature.
