A new form of analysis created by researchers from Griffith University and Southern Cross University in Australia was able to analyse the age of calcium carbonate that had formed on top of the artwork and dated the image of humans and a large pig as being more than 51,000 years old, more than 4,000 years older than previously thought.
The researchers say the artwork could be even older and that the new uranium-based technique could “revolutionise rock art dating”.
Adhi Agus Oktaviana, the study’s lead author, said: “Humans have probably been telling stories for much longer than 51,200 years, but as words do not fossilise we can only go by indirect proxies like depictions of scenes in art – and the Sulawesi art is now the oldest such evidence by far that is known to archaeology.”
The authors of the research said that while the exact story being told remains unknown, it is obvious that the characters in the art make up some kind of larger story.
A previous study by the same team found the oldest evidence of a hunting sequence in rock art, also in Sulawesi, which was around 44,000 years old and shows pigs being hunted.
The newly-analysed artwork is older than this but it is unclear if it is a hunting scene.