Overview
- An international Indonesian–Australian team reports in Nature that a faint hand stencil in Liang Metanduno on Muna Island, Sulawesi, is the oldest reliably dated rock art.
- The age derives from uranium-series analysis of calcium-carbonate deposits that formed over the pigment, providing a conservative minimum date.
- The stencil’s deliberately narrowed, claw-like finger outlines mark a style unique to Sulawesi, and the cave records repeated painting over tens of thousands of years.
- The date edges past a previously cited Neanderthal-attributed hand stencil in Spain by roughly 1,100 years and follows a 2024 Sulawesi figurative scene dated to about 51,200 years.
- Study authors say the results support an earlier peopling of Sahul via a northern Wallacea route, while outside experts caution the dates are minima and the maker’s species remains unproven; surveys of 44 sites have begun and further dating is planned with Australian funding.