QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
Cosmos Magazine reports that climate change is rapidly weathering rock art at the Maros-Pangkep site in Sulawesi, Indonesia, that dates to at least 44,000 years ago. Intergenerational custodians of the artworks and local archaeologists said the images are disappearing faster now than at any other time in living memory. One of the images, of a warty pig, is the oldest known depiction of an animal. The cave also contains hunting scenes and images thought to depict mystical beings. Jillian Huntley of Griffith University and her colleagues studied the limestone rock face and found evidence of salt crystallization. The salts, she explained, weaken the rock and cause it to flake off, damaging the artworks. “These processes are accelerated by increasing temperatures, more extreme weather,” Huntley said. The extremes include prolonged droughts, standing water from storms and floods, and local food production practices. “We are in a race against time to document
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Some of the oldest art in human history is disintegrating, scientists say. And climate change may be hastening its demise.
New research reports that ancient rock art in Indonesian caves is degrading over time, as bits of rock slowly flake away from the walls. It s a tremendous loss for human history some of these paintings, which depict everything from animals to human figures to abstract symbols, date back about 40,000 years.
Salt crystals building up on the walls are a key part of the problem, the study suggests. These salt deposits seep into the cave walls, then proceed to expand and contract as temperatures rise and fall. This process causes the rock to slowly disintegrate.
New research has shown some of the world’s earliest known rock art is degrading at an alarming rate, and the likely suspect causing this disappearance is climate change.
Much of the world’s earliest known cave art is found in Indonesia, including the oldest known figurative artwork – you may remember the fat-bellied pig, which was global news in January – and the oldest known stencil handprints. These are under threat from aggressive weathering caused by the climate crisis, a team documenting the degradation of painted limestone cave surfaces in Sulawesi reports in Scientific Reports
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The dating of ghostly handprints and animal paintings to at least 35,000 years ago in the Sulawesi caves in 2014 re-wrote the textbooks on what we know about when and where ancient people developed an artistic inclination and what that means for human cognition. Later discoveries, like the pig and the earliest known hunting scene, which also depicts “supernatural” beings, date back e
Linda Siagian
Degradation of ancient rock art in Indonesia may be accelerating due to climate change.
The Maros-Pangkep karst, a cave complex in Indonesia, contains Palaeolithic paintings that are between 20,000 and 45,000 years old, including one of the oldest known hand stencils in the world. Anecdotal reports in recent decades suggest that the paintings have been degrading at an accelerated rate. To investigate, Jillian Huntley at Griffith University in Australia and her colleagues analysed flakes of rock at 11 cave sites in Maros-Pangkep.
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They found a high level of sulphur in the rock at all 11 sites, as well as a build-up of calcium sulphate and sodium chloride salts in rock at three of the sites. The salts occur naturally in the rock and form crystals in a process called salt efflorescence, which often happens in wet environments.
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Climate change may be accelerating the degradation of ancient rock paintings in Indonesia, including the oldest known hand stencil in the world which dates back to 39,900 years ago, according to a study published in
Scientific Reports.
Rock paintings made using red and mulberry-coloured pigments in the limestone caves and rock shelters of Maros-Pangkep, Indonesia have been dated to between 20,000 and 45,000 years old. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the paintings have been deteriorating at an accelerated rate in recent decades, but the reasons for this have been unclear.
Jillian Huntley and colleagues investigated the potential causes of accelerated rock art degradation at 11 cave art sites in Maros-Pangkep, by analysing flakes of rock that had begun to detach from cave surfaces. The authors found salts including calcium sulfate and sodium chloride in flakes of rock at three of the sites. These salts are known to form crystals on the rock surfaces, which cause the rock