The world's oldest cave painting: a hand from 67,800 years ago
A hand stencil in an Indonesian cave beats every record for human art.
In a cave on a small Indonesian island, a hand stenciled on the rock at least 67,800 years ago becomes the oldest dated rock art.
An Indonesian-Australian team documented 44 rock art sites in southeastern Sulawesi and dated 11 motifs. The oldest is a hand stencil in Liang Metanduno cave, on Muna Island: just a 14-by-10-centimeter patch of pigment with part of the fingers and palm. One of the fingers appears deliberately narrowed, a style known only in Sulawesi.
To date it they used a laser-ablation uranium technique on the calcite that formed over the pigment. That layer is 71,600 ± 3,800 years old, so the painting is at least 67,800 years old. It is a minimum age: the work could be even older.
The finding beats by 1,100 years the Spanish stencil attributed to Neanderthals, whose dating is controversial. The authors attribute it to our species because of its complexity. It is also the oldest evidence of Homo sapiens in Wallacea and supports the idea that Australia's first settlers, about 65,000 years ago, arrived by sea through the north of those islands.
Key facts
- Measured age: 71,600 ± 3,800 years; minimum, 67,800.
- Beats the previous Maros-Pangkep record in Sulawesi by 16,600 years.
- The same panel had two painting episodes at least 35,000 years apart.
- Published in Nature on January 21, 2026.
The authors hope to find art of similar age at other points along the northern route to Australia.
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