Jan 14, 2021
Scientists from Griffith University have discovered the world’s oldest known cave painting on a limestone wall on South Sulawesi island in Indonesia.
Maxime Auberttime
Dated to a remarkable 45,500 years ago, the painting is of a Sulawesi warty pig, a species hunted and depicted often in Sulawesi cave art from the Last Glacial Period.
The discovery definitively knocks out Europe and establishes that the Indo-Pacific is the center of the first-known developments in artistic expression and perhaps even story-telling.
“The cave is in a valley that’s enclosed by steep limestone cliffs and is only accessible by a narrow cave passage in the dry season, as the valley floor is completely flooded in the wet,” said Prof. Adam Brumm, co-leader of the expedition that consisted of researchers from both Indonesia’s highest center for archaeology (ARKENA), and Griffith’s Research Center for Human Evolution.
From bushfires to flash flooding, what will the Australian summer of the future look like?
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Residents of Tumbulgum paddle their kayaks down a street on December 15.
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Cancel State of emergency declared , read the headlines in the days leading up to Christmas last year.
In parts of northern NSW, where flood warnings were issued this month, consecutive days of wild weather caused thousands of residents to remain on standby for evacuation.
And with the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO s latest biannual report on the climate observing a more tangible shift in the extremes , questions are emerging about what the summers of the future may hold.