Hand stencils from an Indonesian cave have been confirmed as the world's oldest cave art. They are not simply paint sprayed over a hand; one finger was overpainted to look like a claw. The discovery was assessed as evidence supporting the hypothesis that Homo sapiens, the direct ancestors of modern humans, migrated to Australia via a northern route through Sulawesi.
A research team led by Maxime Aubert of Griffith University in Australia said on the 22nd in the journal Nature that they "found art made at least 67,800 years ago by the direct ancestors of humans at the Liang Metanduno cave site on Muna Island in southeastern Sulawesi." This is 16,600 years older than the previously known oldest cave art painted by Homo sapiens, and more than 1,100 years older than the hand stencils left by Neanderthals, extinct relatives of humans.
◇Cave art keeps rewriting records
In recent decades, Sulawesi in Indonesia has emerged as a pivotal place in human history. Cave art age records have kept falling here. In 2021, Aubert's team reported in Science Advances that they had found the oldest cave art, 45,500 years old, in the Leang Tedongnge cave on Sulawesi. The pig in the painting, with what appears to be a mantis drawn on its face, was identified as a Sulawesi warty pig, native to the island.
A 2024 Nature paper broke that record. Aubert announced that cave art at Leang Karampuan in the same region was made 51,200 years ago. The image of three people with one pig was recognized, until the new hand stencil emerged, as the oldest cave art and as a hunting scene.
This time, the researchers surveyed caves across southeastern Sulawesi, Indonesia, and identified a total of 44 sites. The painting in a Muna Island cave was dated to 67,800 years ago using uranium-series dating.
Most cave art was painted with mineral inorganic pigments such as ochre, so radiocarbon dating, which is based on organic carbon, did not work. The Griffith team extracted uranium from calcium carbonate deposits formed as water seeped over the cave art. They measured age using the rate at which uranium emits radiation over time and transforms into thorium.
The oldest known hand stencils to date were 66,700 years old and left by Neanderthals in northern Spain. The new hand stencils are 1,100 years older. Adam Brumm of Griffith University, a co-author of the paper, said, "The Sulawesi hand stencils were made in essentially the same way as the Spanish Neanderthal hand stencils," adding, "They put a hand on the wall and sprayed ochre pigment."
What's different is that one fingertip in the Sulawesi hand stencils shows signs of having been artificially narrowed. To make such a modification, they would have had to add more pigment, or move the hand while spraying pigment against the cave wall. The researchers said, "They likely wanted the hand to look like that of an animal with claws," calling it "evidence of creative imagination and abstract thought not seen in the Neanderthal handprints."
◇Evidence that modern humans reached Australia 65,000 years ago
Considering the modification to narrow the finger, the person who made the painting was more likely Homo sapiens than Neanderthal, the researchers said. Evidence from the Madjedbebe site in Australia indicates that Homo sapiens arrived on the Australian continent at least 60,000 years ago. The team inferred that Sulawesi likely served as a springboard from Southeast Asia, via New Guinea, to the Australian continent.
Long ago, Australia was connected with New Guinea and Tasmania, forming the Sahul supercontinent. The academic community has long been divided between those who argue that the direct ancestors of humans arrived on Sahul 50,000 years ago and those who contend they arrived at least 65,000 years ago. The researchers said the new discovery strongly supports the hypothesis that the ancestors of Australians were in Sahul 65,000 years ago.
Scholars have proposed two main migration routes into Sahul. One is a northern route through Sulawesi toward the New Guinea region, and the other is a southern route directly to mainland Australia via Timor or adjacent islands. Renaud Joannes-Boyau of Southern Cross University, a co-author, said, "This discovery has revealed the most likely route of the stepping-stone journey from mainland Asia to Sahul via the northern route." The researchers said similar ancient cave art may be found along this route.
Martin Porr of the University of Western Australia, who was not involved in the study, said, "This discovery identifies the oldest cave art painted by Homo sapiens," adding that "the age of the hand stencils matches the existing dates for the earliest appearance of modern humans in Australia, mainland Asia and Southeast Asia." But Porr said, "Much more research is needed to be confident about the route humans took to Australia."
References
Nature(2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09968-y
Nature(2024), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07541-7
Science Advances(2021), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd4648