Bold claim: A 67,800-year-old hand stencil in Indonesia rewrites what we thought about the origins of art and humanity. And this is the part most people miss… the Sulawesi caves reveal a far older, richer artistic tradition in Southeast Asia than we previously imagined. The limestone chambers on Sulawesi, including a cave on Muna Island, hide a faded red patch that, until recently, went unnoticed. Now researchers recognize it as a fragment of a human hand pressed against rock and painted with pigment in the deep past.
The hand stencil is small—roughly 14 by 10 centimeters—and shows portions of fingers and a palm. One fingertip looks intentionally altered: it seems the painter moved the hand while applying pigment or added pigment after the fact. This gives the hand a claw-like look, a rare twist on a universal human gesture found in ancient cave art worldwide.
For a long time, archaeologists believed Europe housed the oldest rock art. That view is shifting decisively toward Southeast Asia.
Dating the art with uranium-series methods reveals a minimum age of 67,800 years.
An international team led by Griffith University, Indonesia’s BRIN agency, and Southern Cross University analyzed tiny calcite deposits that formed over the pigment after application. In a peer-reviewed Nature study, they explained how these deposits formed over time and allowed precise dating. The calcite on top formed around 71,600 years ago (with a margin of about 3,800 years), which means the hand stencil beneath must be at least 67,800 years old. This pushes the record beyond Sulawesi’s previous example by more than 16,000 years and edges out a contested hand stencil from Spain attributed to Neanderthals, dated at about 66,700 years.
Professor Maxime Aubert of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research described the result as a sign of an exceptionally early artistic tradition in Sulawesi. He noted that Sulawesi’s early human occupants created art with depth and longevity dating back at least 67,800 years.
The same panel contains evidence of repeated visits: another hand stencil nearby yields a minimum date of 60,900 years, and a separate pigment layer above it dates to around 21,500 years. Taken together, these dates show art was created in at least two distinct episodes, separated by more than 35,000 years, indicating that generations returned to the same site to create art over a span far longer than most of recorded human history.
What these paintings tell us about ancient beliefs is still unfolding. The distinctive, narrowed fingers make this stencil unlike thousands of others found around the world. Although the exact meaning remains uncertain, researchers suggest it could reflect a close relationship between humans and animals. Adam Brumm of Griffith’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution notes that Sulawesi’s early art may express ideas about humans and animals being interconnected, including possible depictions of partly human, partly animal figures in some early scenes.
The researchers surveyed 44 sites across Southeast Sulawesi, including 14 previously unknown locations. They dated 11 individual motifs across eight caves, with most hand stencils falling in the Late Pleistocene. Notable examples include Gua Mbokita, where hand stencils are at least 44,700 and 25,900 years old, and Gua Anawai, with stencils dated between 20,100 and 20,400 years ago, positioning them near the height of the last Ice Age.
Why this matters for migrations to Australia is profound. During the Pleistocene, sea levels were lower, exposing Sahul—the landmass that connected Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea. People could reach Sahul only by crossing Wallacea, the archipelago between Asia and Sahul. There are two main migration hypotheses: a northern route through Sulawesi and the Maluku Islands toward western New Guinea, and a southern route through Timor and the Lesser Sunda Islands toward northwestern Australia. Until now, evidence along both paths was limited.
Dr. Adhi Agus Oktaviana of BRIN and Griffith University emphasizes that Sulawesi’s ancient art provides the oldest direct evidence of modern humans along the northern corridor. He suggests this discovery supports the idea that the ancestors of the First Australians were in Sahul by around 65,000 years ago. This aligns with excavations at Madjedbebe in northern Australia, where artifacts suggest human presence between about 68,700 and 59,300 years ago. Renaud Joannes-Boyau of Southern Cross University notes that dating this extremely old Sulawesi rock art fills a crucial gap in our understanding of how people first reached Sahul via the northern migration route.
Reference: “Rock art from at least 67,800 years ago in Sulawesi” by Adhi Agus Oktaviana et al., Nature, 21 January 2026, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09968-y.
Would you like a quick glossary of the key dating methods and migration routes, or a brief map-style summary to visualize how these findings fit into the broader story of early human dispersal?
