The world's oldest cave painting

Hello guys! 👋 

Today’s post is to give you a glimmer of hope that 2021 can be a really good year (certainly better than 2020 😛). It’s only mid-January and the world media has spread the news that archeologists discovered the oldest cave art ever found by people! 🎨

A few days ago, an Australian-Indonesian team of archaeologists shared with the world their discovery of the earliest dated rock art ever discovered! A scene painted in a cave in South Sulawesi (an Indonesian island in the Pacific Ocean) depicts three warty pigs, but only one image has remained undamaged.

This discovery is all the more astonishing because the place where the paintings were discovered is virtually inaccessible to humans for most of the year! A trip to the Leang Tedongnge cave is possible only during the dry season because in the remaining months the entire bottom of a small valley is under water. What is even more impressive, local people say that there had never been a white man in this place before the appearance of archaeologists.

“Getting to it requires a difficult trek along a rough forest path that winds through mountainous terrain and ends in a narrow cave passage, which is the only entrance to the valley.” ~ Dr. Adam Brumm, professor of archaeology at Griffith University, Australia

The Leang Tedongnge cave entrance on Sulawesi Island in Indonesia / AA Oktaviana

What is worth adding, archaeologists expect that this is not the end of rock art discoveries in this area:

“We think there is much older rock art and other evidence for human habitation in Sulawesi and on other islands within the part of eastern Indonesia known as the Wallacean archipelago, the gateway to the continent of Australia” , Dr. Brumm said.

Thus, we have nothing else to do but carefully follow the news from the world of archeology! Don’t worry, even if you miss something in the flood of information, I will certainly write about it on the blog! Stay tuned! 😎

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For those who want to read more about this charming old portrait of the three pigs:

• Indonesia: Archaeologists find world's oldest animal cave painting
• Oldest cave art found in Sulawesi
• Pig Painting May Be World’s Oldest Cave Art Yet, Archaeologists Say

And for those who prefer multimedia forms to reading, here’s a short video about the latest discovery: