A stencilled outline of a hand found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi is the world's oldest known cave painting, researchers say. The discovery, dated to at least 67,800 years ago, predates the previous record holder, a controversial hand stencil in Spain, by approximately 1,100 years.

The painting depicts a red outline of a hand, with the fingers seemingly reworked to create a claw-like motif. Researchers suggest this alteration indicates an early display of symbolic imagination. According to the study, the find strengthens the argument that Homo sapiens reached the wider Australia-New Guinea landmass, known as Sahul, around 15,000 years earlier than some researchers previously believed.

Over the past decade, a series of discoveries on Sulawesi has challenged the long-held belief that art and abstract thought originated in Ice Age Europe and then spread outwards. Cave art is considered a significant marker of when humans began to think abstractly and symbolically, a cognitive leap that underpins language, religion, and science. Early paintings and engravings demonstrate humans not only reacting to the world but also representing it.

The dating of the Sulawesi painting was achieved through uranium-series analysis, a radiometric dating technique used to determine the age of calcium carbonate deposits. This method analyzes the decay of uranium isotopes into thorium isotopes within the mineral deposits that form on or over the cave paintings. The ratio of these isotopes provides a reliable estimate of the painting's age.

The implications of this discovery extend beyond archaeology. It suggests that the capacity for abstract thought and artistic expression may have emerged earlier and in different geographical locations than previously thought. This challenges Eurocentric views of human cognitive development and highlights the importance of studying diverse regions to understand the full scope of human history. Further research on Sulawesi and other regions of Southeast Asia is expected to yield more insights into the origins of human creativity and symbolic thinking.