The hand stencil found in a limestone cave in Southeast Sulawesi is now recorded as the oldest known rock art ever discovered, reshaping current understanding of the origins of art and the migration of modern humans.
Scientific dating confirms that the imprint is at least 67,800 years old. The findings, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, officially place Indonesia as the world’s earliest scientifically dated site of cave art.
The discovery also strengthens the earliest archaeological evidence of modern human presence along the island chain between Asia and Australia.
Liang Metanduno: An Ancient Canvas on Muna Island
The hand stencil was found in Liang Metanduno, a cave on Muna Island that was previously known as a rock art tourism site featuring paintings dated to around 4,000 years ago.
Beneath these younger artworks, researchers identified two extremely faint ancient hand stencils. One has a minimum age of 67,800 years, while the other dates back at least 60,900 years.
These findings indicate that the cave served as a site of symbolic expression for tens of thousands of years, with intervals between artistic phases spanning approximately 35,000 years.
Dating the Art That Changed the Record Books
The age of the rock art was determined using laser-ablation uranium-series (LA–U-series) dating on microscopic calcite layers that formed over the pigment after the paintings were created.
The analysis yielded an age of 71.6 ± 3.8 thousand years, establishing a conservative minimum age of 67.8 thousand years. This method is considered highly precise because it directly measures mineral deposits that accumulated after the artwork was produced.
The technique also resolves longstanding debates surrounding Europe’s oldest cave art. Previously, a hand stencil in Spain dated to approximately 66,700 years ago—attributed to Neanderthals—was regarded as the oldest known example, though its dating method remained contested.
With the Sulawesi discovery, the record shifts to Southeast Asia, surpassing the European find by roughly 1,100 years.
“Through analysis directly on the calcite layers that cover the pigment, we are no longer dependent on indirect dating,” said Sofwan Noewidi, Head of the Archeometry Research Center at Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).
A Hand Stencil Style Found Nowhere Else
Beyond its extraordinary age, the hand stencil from Muna Island is also visually striking. The fingertips were deliberately modified to appear narrow and pointed, resembling claws.
This distinctive narrow-finger style has so far been found only in Sulawesi and has not been documented anywhere else in the world.
“The tips of the fingers were carefully reshaped to make them appear pointed,” said Prof. Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist and geochemist from Griffith University, Australia, and one of the lead researchers of the study.
Meanwhile, Prof. Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE), Griffith University, noted, “It was almost as if they were deliberately trying to transform this image of a human hand into something else—an animal claw perhaps.”
According to Brumm, the symbolic meaning of this modification remains unknown, but it indicates a mature and complex level of symbolic expression.
The stencil was created by placing a hand against the cave wall and blowing ochre pigment—likely using the mouth—around it to form a silhouette. The pigment was then reapplied to alter the shape of the fingers.
This technical complexity is one of the key reasons researchers believe the artwork was created by Homo sapiens.
Key Evidence of Early Modern Human Migration
The discovery carries major implications for understanding early modern human migration. The presence of nearly 70,000-year-old rock art in Wallacea strengthens the view that the region was not merely a migration corridor, but a core living space for early modern humans.
“It is very likely that the creators of these paintings were part of a population that later spread further east and eventually reached Australia,” Adhi said.
The findings support long-chronology models suggesting that humans had reached the Sahul landmass at least around 65,000 years ago.
“This discovery provides strong support that the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians were already in Sahul at or before 65,000 years ago,” he added.
