A group of therianthropic figures confronting an anoa at Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4. Image credit: Aubert et al.
SciNews has a story about a very old cave painting discovered in Indonesia. Archaeologist excavating the limestone cave of Leang Bulu' Sipong 4 on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi discovered a painting that is about 43,900 years old. The painting depicts a group of 'therianthropes', abstract beings which combine qualities of people and animals, hunting wild pigs and small buffalo-like animals with spears and ropes. This scene is now the earliest known instance of figurative art in the world. Details can be found in a recent paper published in the journal Nature.
“The hunters represented in the ancient rock art panel at Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 are simple figures with human-like bodies, but they have been depicted with heads or other body parts like those from birds, reptiles, and other faunal species endemic to Sulawesi,” said Dr. Adhi Agus Oktaviana, a researcher at Griffith University and the Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional.
“These therianthropes are portrayed in the act of killing or capturing six fleeing mammals, two Sulawesi warty pigs and four dwarf buffaloes known as anoas. The latter are small but fierce bovids that still inhabit the island’s dwindling forests.”
“Remarkably, some figures appear to be using long ropes to capture these dangerous animals.”
Dr. Oktaviana and colleagues measured the radioactive decay of uranium and other elements within mineral growths that had formed on the cave painting, providing minimum ages ranging from 35,100 to 43,900 years ago for the underlying art.