This Cave Contains the Oldest Story Ever Recorded

[Judi Lynn]

SCIENCE12.27.2019 10:00 AM

Archaeologists say the 43,900-year-old cave painting might also include the oldest known religious images.



COURTESY OF MAXIME AUBERT
At this very moment, you're a participant in one of the things that makes us human: the telling and consumption of stories. It's impossible to say when our species began telling each other stories—or when we first evolved the ability to use language to communicate not only simple, practical concepts but to share vivid accounts of events real or imagined. But by 43,900 years ago, people on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi had started painting some of their stories in images on cave walls.

A newly discovered painting in a remote cave depicts a hunting scene, and it's the oldest story that has been recorded. And if Griffith University archaeologist Maxime Aubert and his colleagues are right, it could also be the first record of spiritual belief—and our first insight into what the makers of cave art were thinking.

A 44,000-Year-Old Hunting Story
Across a 4.5 meter (14.8 foot) section of rock wall, 3 meters (9.8 feet) above the floor of a hard-to-reach upper chamber of a site called Liang Bulu'Sipong 4, wild pigs and dwarf buffalo called anoa face off against a group of strangely tiny hunters in monochrome dark red. A dark red hand stencil adorns the left end of the mural, almost like an ancient artist's signature. Through an opening in the northeast wall of the cave, sunlight spills in to illuminate the scene.

Liang Bulu'Sipong 4 is a living cave, still being reshaped by flowing water, and layers of rock have begun to grow over the painting in spots. The minerals that form those layers include small traces of uranium, which over time decays into thorium-230. Unlike the uranium, the thorium isn't water-soluble and can only get into the rock via decay. By measuring the ratio of uranium-234 to thorium-230 in the rock, archaeologists can tell how recently the rock layer formed.

More:
https://www.wired.com/story/cave-with-oldest-story-ever-recorded/

[calimary]

1. That hand stencil as a signature -

It comes up in ancient cave art. Amazing how this image repeats across the continents.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.voanews.com/silicon-valley-technology/ancient-cave-art-could-be-neanderthals%3famp


https://charismaticplanet.com/ancient-cave-of-hands-in-patagonia-argentina/

[KY_EnviroGuy]

3. Thanks, Calimary. Gets my curiosity.....

about what the red discs represented to them. Perhaps they were just practicing?



Looks like someone turned the kids loose with the Krylon......

[DBoon]

5. a count of days?

ancient calendar?

[WhiteTara]

7. counting the days between menstrual cycles?

[KY_EnviroGuy]

2. Thanks, Judi Lynn. Here's a view of the entire painting...

A 43,900-year-old Cave Painting in Sulawesi, Indonesia is the Oldest Hunting Story Depicted
Posted by Kambiz Kamrani in Archaeology
Dec. 15, 2019

From: https://anthropology.net/2019/12/15/a-43900-year-old-cave-painting-in-sulawesi-indonesia-is-the-oldest-hunting-story-depicted/


(snip)

Archaeologist Maxime Aubert, from Griffith University and his colleagues have published, in Nature, the discovery of the oldest depicted hunting story. The cave painting is thought to be 43,900 years old. It was made by prehistoric people on the island of Sulawesi. The painting is about 4.5 meter or 14.8 feet in length and about 3 meters or 9.8 feet above the floor of a hard-to-reach upper chamber of a cave called Liang Bulu’Sipong 4.

I don't have a subscription to Nature, but at least we get a good snapshot........

[bitterross]

4. Why must we interpret it as "religion?"

We so often make the fallacy of interpreting other cultures from other times through the lens of our current culture. We even do this with peoples who are living in this age but are different from us. How the heck can you assume people who lived 40,000+ years ago were religious just because we have religions in our current societies?

They painted pictures of animals on the walls. Maybe the pictures are just pictures. Maybe the pictures of the people with possible animal masks are just hunters trying to disguise themselves like the animals they're hunting so they can get closer for the kill.

Maybe they're just making paintings of everyday life. We are so certain these early humans were far less intelligent than us and then we go and assume they must have had some sort of mythology and spiritual practices. A higher level of thinking. There is absolutely no evidence for this. Those paintings, in and of themselves, are not evidence. We are simply interpreting their paintings and their need to paint them through our own biases. That's dumb.

[packman]

6. The evidence is in the cave itself

" Within this cave, raised 20 meters above the valley, there is no trace human life. No signs of stone tools, discarded bones, and cooking fires are found anywhere within the cave or in the chamber beneath. That begs to ask was this raised mural; with mythical hunters and proportionally large legendary prey, upon this cave wall part of a spiritual place."

20 meters above the valley
No trace of human life
No stone tools, bones, cooking fire
No signs of daily living with the cave or chamber beneath

Interpreting these "seem" to indicate they held the cave as a special place insomuch as one today regard a church. If one thinks of a modern day church with its murals, stained glass windows, statues, icons, relics, etc. - it is not a far stretch to think these early humans had their special places also that they would not defile with everyday activities and objects.

[bitterross]

9. That's no evidence at all. Again, you're putting our values on them.

Why compare it to a church? Why not compare it to an art gallery or museum? Those are two other places where we revere artworks. Where we don't hold day-to-day activities. Maybe Ogg painted these pictures and sold admission to his gallery? There's not alter, there's no evidence of sacrifices or offerings.

You are STILL interpreting things with the lens of OUR culture. Sure, it was a special place to them. Sure, it was revered and maybe they didn't hold day-to-day activities there. That doesn't make it a church.

[packman]

10. Sigh----

[bitterross]

11. Trust me, my sighs are just as large as yours.

As a non-religious person, it frustrates me that so much gets automatically interpreted as religious. I'm sure you think I'm being silly. I'm not. It's the acceptance of these little things that leads to the tacit acceptance of the larger things.

Things like when people say the US was founded on the Bible and that the Constitution is a God-given document. Those statements are wrong, wrong, wrong. But people don't call them out. Regular, non Christofasicts, don't usually flinch when these things are said. I do. The reason they don't flinch at such obviously wrong statements is so much of our current society is interpreted through a Judaeo-Christian lens. They just accept it or ignore it.

It's the same with these paintings. Some person with a predilection toward religion says "Hey, these must be here for some religious purpose." Why do they say that? Because they interpreted the findings based upon their own biases. They won't give the early humans credit for any skills, critical thinking or higher thoughts. Then BANG! they give them credit for coming up with some sort of religious practices that require just the type of thinking they say those people were not capable of. You can't have it both ways.

Maybe the painting is just a damn painting. Nothing more and nothing less. Why do we have to place meaning upon it? Because WE think of these things in terms of gods and religions. WE put OUR motives and thoughts on them. Who says, with any real evidence and certainty those early people even had religion 40k years ago? It's speculation based upon a bias.

Just think about how wrong archeologists and anthropologists have been about the first humans of the Americas. They used to be firm that no one was hear before 12-13k years ago. That they all came over the land bride. Now, we find there are pre-Clovis peoples thousands of years older. We find the DNA of tribes in S. America don't match the land bridge theory.

Who says these paintings weren't common things in everyone's cave 40k years ago? They could have been common and just not have survived into modern times. We have a heck of a time preserving them now. Most of them could have disappeared by now.

In 40k years, when someone digs up my room and sees my photographs and sketches I hang on my walls they will not have found a church. I wonder how they will interpret them. Will they say this atheist must have had some reverence for the many animals of which he took photos? Did he worship the trees and flowers he sketched? Will there be enough of our current society left for them to make a valid interpretation?

Yes, I'm adamant about this because I believe religion, especially the type of Christo-fasism practiced by the fake-Christians of today in the US is ruining our country. When we blithely accept that everything is rooted in some sort of religion we give them power.

[packman]

12. I, too, am a non-believer and have little patience with religion

It's corrosive to progressive thought and manipulative in its message. We seem to agree 100% with that. HOWEVER, perhaps I misstated my intended point. Regardless of how we feel today about God, god-like entities, churches, evangelists, etc., my belief is that cave held special meaning to those early humans and they treated it with reverence akin to what some people treat holy sites today. I have always believed that religion began when the first con man met the first fool. But those early humans lived close to nature and probably saw a higher being or force in the animals they hunted and in the environment they lived in to survive and made an appeal to them on that cave's walls.

That "Sigh" was not meant on any personnel level. It's just I did not want to get into a back-and-forth with a fellow DUer. Sorry if it offended.

[lostnfound]

14. Reminds me of football playbooks . Coordinating a hunt ahead of time. Nt

[Boomer]

15. Wait, wait a minute, say what?

"We are so certain these early humans were far less intelligent than us..."

Where did you ever get that idea? Homo sapiens is approximately 200,000 years old. These aren't "early humans" at all; they are fully modern humans, so no one should be questioning their intellect. Paleo-archaeologists definitely would not make that mistake.

I know that isn't the main point you're discussing, but if you get this basic information wrong, it's more difficult to find the rest of your argument to be persuasive. Since humans from 50,000 years ago were just as capable of a "higher level of thinking" as anyone today, concepts such as mythology and spiritual practices can't be ruled out. You may not agree with those interpretations, but your basis for disagreement is off base by more than 150,000 years.

[cornball 24]

8. Thank you, Judi Lynn. You always post such interesting things.

[Bayard]

13. Seconded here!

I'm wondering what they can do about the painting being eroded? Would it be possible to laser it off and move?