Very old cave art, not from Europe

[redbird]

What may be the oldest known cave paintings have been found, in Sulawesi, Indonesia. This is definitely the oldest known hand stencil, and a painting of a babirusa may be the oldest known drawing of an animal.

So, art didn't originate only in Western Europe, as people have been assuming. Either it goes back to before our ancestors spread out from Africa, or that shift in thought happened at least twice. (The article I'm linking to assumes it happened once.)

The discovery of 40,000-year-old cave paintings at opposite ends of the globe suggests that the ability to create representational art had its origins further back in time in Africa, before modern humans spread across the rest of the world.

"That's kind of my gut feeling," says Prof Stringer. "The basis for this art was there 60,000 years ago; it may even have been there in Africa before 60,000 years ago and it spread with modern humans".