Earliest art in Borneo
AUSTRALIAN and Indonesian researchers have found the world’s oldest-known figurative painting in a cave on the Indonesian island of Borneo.
The reddish-orange drawing of an unrecognisable animal is at least 40,000 years old, according to the study led by Maxime Aubert from Gold Coast’s Griffith University.
The finding, published in Nature on Wednesday, adds to the view that cave art did not arise in Europe, as long believed, and “ice age” artists in southeast Asia were key to its growth.