Oldest cave painting of red claw hand could rewrite human creativity timeline
AI Summary
Researchers have discovered the world's oldest known cave painting on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi: a red hand stencil, reworked to resemble a claw, dated to at least 67,800 years ago. This discovery predates the previous record holder in Spain by over a thousand years. The finding supports the idea that Homo sapiens reached the Australia-New Guinea landmass earlier than some researchers suggest and challenges the long-held belief that art and abstract thought originated in Ice Age Europe. Experts say this discovery, along with others in Sulawesi, indicates that creativity was innate to humans and present across different geographical regions, not solely a European phenomenon. Cave art is considered a key indicator of abstract and symbolic thinking in early humans.
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