Researchers say a series of handprints may be the oldest rock art ever found. They were found on a cave wall in Sulawesi, in Indonesia. The prints were likely made more than 67,000 years ago. Other cave art found in the area dates back only 4,000 years.
Maxime Aubert is an archaeologist. She announced the find in a study published on January 21 in the journal Nature. “This discovery is not the end of the story,” Aubert wrote in an email to the Associated Press. “It is an invitation to keep looking.”
Researchers say that, to make the prints, people held their hands against the rock. Pigment was then blown over the hands. It left outlines. Researchers aren’t sure whether the art was made by humans or by a prehistoric human relative.
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