67,800-Year-Old Hand Stencil Found in Indonesian Cave

Archaeologists have identified a hand stencil in a limestone cave on Muna Island, off the southeastern coast of Sulawesi in Indonesia, as the oldest known rock art, dating to at least 67,800 years ago. The discovery, detailed in a study published in the journal Nature, surpasses previous records, including a Neanderthal-made stencil in Spain dated to around 66,700 years ago.

The artwork, found in Liang Metanduno cave, depicts a human hand with intentionally narrowed, claw-like fingers, created by spraying pigment over a hand pressed against the wall. Researchers led by Maxime Aubert and Adam Brumm from Griffith University in Australia, along with colleagues from Indonesia and other institutions, used uranium-series dating on thin calcite deposits that formed over the pigment. This method provides a minimum age, as the minerals accumulated after the art was made. The stencil had gone unnoticed amid later paintings of animals and figures in the cave, which show continuous artistic activity spanning at least 35,000 years, until around 20,000 years ago.

This finding builds on prior discoveries in Sulawesi, where the team has documented dozens of rock art sites, including a...