paint a picture of time inevitably running out for these expansive cave drawings.
The oldest artwork, featuring three warty, rotund pigs, surrounded by handprints, dates back over 45,000 years. An increase in the formation of salt crystals rigorously degrade the limestone cave wall, causing the art to chip and fall away. Unlike their European counterparts, higher equatorial temperatures threaten Sulawesi’s cave drawings, a reality that’s only becoming more grim.
“I was gobsmacked by how prevalent the destructive salt crystals and their chemistry were on the rock art panels, some of which we know to be more than 40,000 years old,” said study lead Dr. Jillian Huntley. “In my opinion, degradation of this incredible rock art is set to worsen the higher global temperatures climb.”
As the full-scope of what we stand to lose to climate change continues to come into fruition, primitive art has now come into view. Scientists only recently discovered the oldest cave drawings known to man in Sulawesi an island in Indonesia and they now see the artifacts “disappearing before [their] eyes.”
According to
The New York Times, researchers believe that the life-sized painting of a pig is at least 45,500 years old.
It was found in December 2017 in a limestone cave called Leang Tedongnge during a survey led by Griffith University graduate student Basran Burhan.
The same team of archeologists made up of researchers from Griffith University and Indonesia’s leading archaeological research centre, Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional (ARKENAS) had previously found other cave paintings on Sulawesi which were dated to be at least 43,900 years old.
Located near one of Indonesia s largest cities
In a video uploaded to YouTube by Griffith University, co-leader of the Griffith-ARKENAS team Adam Brumm described how the depiction of the Sulawesi warty pig was found alongside a scene of two other pigs engaged in some sort of social activity.