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A hand stencil found on the wall of a cave in Indonesia has been identified as the oldest known example of rock art in the world, dating back at least 67,800 years.

The discovery, made on the province of Sulawesi, pushes back the known origins of human artistic expression by at least 15,000 years, surpassing the researchers’ own previous find in the same region.

The cave art was discovered and dated by an international research team co-led by Griffith University, Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) and Southern Cross University.

Scientists say the finding has major implications for understanding how and when Australia was first settled, with the Sulawesi artwork likely created by a population closely related to the ancestors of Indigenous Australians.

“It is now evident from our new phase of research that Sulawesi was home to one of the world’s richest and most longstanding artistic cultures, one with origins in the earliest history of human occupation of the island at least 67,800 years ago,” said Professor Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist and geochemist from the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research (GCSCR), who co-led the study.

The fragmentary hand stencil was found in limestone caves on the satellite island of Muna, in south-eastern Sulawesi. It was surrounded by paintings of a much more recent origin.

To determine its age, the team used advanced uranium-series dating techniques, analysing microscopic mineral deposits that had formed on and beneath the paintings at Liang Metanduno cave. This allowed researchers to establish a time window during which the artwork was created.
The hand stencil was dated to a minimum age of 67,800 years, making it the oldest reliably dated cave art yet discovered and significantly older than a Sulawesi rock painting dated by the same researchers in 2024.

The study also revealed that the Muna cave had been used repeatedly for artistic activity over an exceptionally long period. Paintings were produced for at least 35,000 years, continuing until about 20,000 years ago.

Researchers also noted that the hand stencil is a globally unique variant of the motif. After it was originally created, it appears to have been deliberately altered to narrow the negative outlines of the fingers, giving the impression of a claw-like hand.

Professor Adam Brumm, from Griffith University’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE), who also co-led the study, said the meaning of the altered fingers remained uncertain.

“This art could symbolise the idea that humans and animals were closely connected, something we already seem to see in the very early painted art of Sulawesi, with at least one instance of a scene portraying figures that we interpret as representations of part-human, part-animal beings,” Professor Brumm said.

Dr Adhi Agus Oktaviana, a rock art specialist at BRIN and a team leader on the project, said the paintings had far-reaching consequences for understanding the deep history of Aboriginal culture in Australia.

“It is very likely that the people who made these paintings in Sulawesi were part of the broader population that would later spread through the region and ultimately reach Australia,” Dr Oktaviana said.

For decades, archaeologists have debated when humans first arrived in Sahul - the Pleistocene-era landmass that once connected present-day Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea.
Some scholars have supported a “short chronology” model, suggesting humans arrived about 50,000 years ago, while others argue for a “long chronology”, placing the first arrival at least 65,000 years ago.

“This discovery strongly supports the idea that the ancestors of the First Australians were in Sahul by 65,000 years ago,” Dr Oktaviana said.
Researchers have proposed two main migration routes into Sahul: a northern route through Sulawesi and the Spice Islands into New Guinea, and a more southerly route via Timor or neighbouring islands directly to Australia.

Professor Renaud Joannes-Boyau, from the Geoarchaeology and Archaeometry Research Group (GARG) at Southern Cross University, said the new dating evidence supports the northern route as the most likely path taken by early humans.

“With the dating of this extremely ancient rock art in Sulawesi, we now have the oldest direct evidence for the presence of modern humans along this northern migration corridor into Sahul,” Professor Joannes-Boyau said.

“These discoveries underscore the archaeological importance of the many other Indonesian islands between Sulawesi and westernmost New Guinea,” Professor Aubert said, adding that further research was under way.

The ongoing work is supported by funding from the Australian Research Council, as part of broader investments into research on human origins and the preservation of ancient cultural heritage.