Were ancient humans more arty than we thought?
The painting shows a red outline of a hand
- Published
Researchers think that the world's oldest cave painting, found on Sulawesi in Indonesia, could tell us more about how creative ancient humans were.
The wall art, studied by Professor Brumm at Griffiths University in Australia and his team, dates back at least 67,800 years, according to experts.
The image is a red outline of the ancient artist's hand, which has been changed to make their fingers look longer and more like claws.
Experts say this shows that ancient humans were using their imagination, rather than simply painting what was in front of them.
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What does the oldest cave painting in the world tell us?
More hand stencils with long fingers exist in other parts of Sulawesi
About 40,000 years ago, lots of new types of art - like cave paintings and carvings - seemed to appear in France and Spain at around the same time.
Because of this, many archaeologists thought that prehistoric humans in a small part of Europe had suddenly "switched on" their ability to be creative, during the Ice Age.
But now, discoveries of ancient art in other parts of the world suggest that this may not be the case.
The cave painting in Sulawesi is more than 25,000 years older than the art from Ice Age Europe.
Researchers think this shows that ancient humans were being creative much earlier than many archaeologists thought - and in different parts of the world, too.
