SYDNEY, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- Scientists have found what could be the world's oldest figurative art in a cave in Indonesia, said a report released on Thursday.
The Australian-led team's discovery of cave art on the island of Sulawesi, estimated at about 40,000 years old, challenges the idea that the oldest artwork had originated in Spain and France.
Australia's Griffith University geochemist Maxime Aubert said he was stunned when he tested the samples from the cave and realized how old the art was.
The team's study, outlined on Thursday in Nature magazine, dates the earliest image, a hand stencil, at least 39,900 years old, which is 900 years younger than the world's oldest known cave painting, a red disc in Spain.
However, the series of Indonesian images discovered also includes pig-like animals painted more than 35,400 years ago, possibly older than the earliest known figurative rock art in western Europe -- a painted rhinoceros in France, estimated at between 35,300 and 38,800 years old.
The report said the sheer volume of ancient cave art in Europe had pointed to the theory that the human capacity for abstract thinking originated there, but the new discovery makes the case that this development was occurring in Asia at the same time.
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