Staff Writer, DL Mullan
Archaeology / Art____________________________________
In humans, when did creativity begin? Was it solely Europeans as has the evidence has suggested these many years? Or, is creativity simply a human trait for which we have yet to discover the remnants in other ancient civilizations?
Enter the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Human history will never be the same again.
“The minimum age for (the outline of the hand) is 39,900 years old, which makes it the oldest hand stencil in the world,” said Dr Aubert.
“Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one,” he told BBC News.
This also indicates a relatively stable human civilization region as the cave paintings were drawn over an 13,000 year time period.
Other cave paintings around the world are:
Compare the painting above from Bone with the one immediately below, which is from El Castillo cave in northern Spain, and dated to be 37,300 years old by researchers at Bristol University.
What does this mean for human history? That art did not begin in Europe. This dating of the Indonesian cave art shows that art traveled with humans across history. The realization that art and creativity may have followed along to Europe from Africa itself.
Human art could go back as far as 60,000 years.
The source link also contains an interactive video of the site.
Source: BBC
