World’s oldest cave art discovered in Indonesia

South China Morning PostEN 1 min read 100% complete by Agence France-PresseJanuary 22, 2026 at 12:51 AM

AI Summary

short article 1 min

Scientists have discovered the world's oldest known cave art in Indonesia, dating back at least 67,800 years. The discovery, published in the journal *Nature*, was made by a team of Indonesian and Australian archaeologists in caves on Muna Island in the Sulawesi province. The art consists of red ochre hand stencils, including one with retouched fingers resembling claws, a style unique to Sulawesi. This finding sheds light on early human migration patterns to Australia. The research team ventured to the caves based on a tip from Indonesian archaeologist Adhi Agus Oktaviana.

Key Entities & Roles

Key Player Opposition Context

Nature 40% Muna 50% Griffith University ×260% Australia ×270% Sulawesi ×370% Adhi Agus Oktaviana 70% Maxime Aubert ×380% Indonesia ×390%

Keywords

cave art 100% indonesia 90% oldest rock art 80% archaeology 70% sulawesi 60% prehistoric cave paintings 60% hand stencils 50% red ochre 50% human migration 40%

Sentiment Analysis

Positive

Score: 0.40

Source Transparency

Source

South China Morning Post

Classification Confidence

90%

This article was automatically classified using rule-based analysis.

Topic Connections

Explore how the topics in this article connect to other news stories

No topic relationship data available yet. This graph will appear once topic relationships have been computed.

cave art indonesia oldest rock art archaeology sulawesi prehistoric cave paintings hand stencils red ochre human migration

Explore Full Topic Graph

Find Similar Articles

AI-Powered

Discover articles with similar content using semantic similarity analysis.