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IPFS News Link • Archaeology

Mysterious painting of a PIG dating back 45,500 years is found in a cave in Indonesia...

• https://www.dailymail.co, By IAN RANDALL

An image of a warty pig painted onto the wall of an Indonesian cave some 45,500 years ago may be the 'world's oldest-known figurative artwork', a study has claimed.

Researchers from Australia and Indonesia found the painting of the native wild boar on the rear wall of the Leang Tedongnge cave in the south of the island of Sulawesi.

The team said that the image provides the earliest evidence for the presence of anatomically modern humans on Sulawesi.

A second painting of a warty pig — this one around 13,500 years younger — has also been found in the nearby Leang Balangajia cave to the south of Leang Tedongnge.

This image, the team said, also featured four hand stencils and several other poorly preserved animal paintings.

'It shows a pig with a short crest of upright hairs and a pair of horn-like facial warts in front of the eyes — a characteristic feature of adult male Sulawesi warty pigs,' said paper author and archaeologist Adam Brumm of Griffith University in Queensland.

'Painted using red ochre pigment, the pig appears to be observing a fight or social interaction between two other warty pigs.'

The researchers explained that such recognisable 'scenes' are extremely uncommon in early cave art. In fact, it was the same team who around a year ago reported the previously oldest-dated rock art scene, which was dated back to 43,900 years ago.

That painting — found in another limestone cave in the area — depicted hybrid human-animal beings hunting Sulawesi warty pigs and dwarf bovids.


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