New research suggests the first people in Southeast Asia painted skillful depictions of animals in rock shelters across the region.
The cave paintings date back between 35,000 and 40,000 years, Griffith University reported. The paintings were dated through the analysis of "overlapping superimpostions" and numerical dating. They consisted of primarily of images of wild animals. To make their findings the researchers looked at early sites in China, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia.
"This shows a purposeful engagement with the new places early peoples arrived in for both symbolic and practical reasons," said Griffith University Chair in Rock Art Professor Paul Taçon. "Essentially, they [humanized] landscapes wherever they went, transforming them from wild places to cultural landscapes. This was the beginning of a process that continues to this day."
In Europe the oldest rock art is found in deep caves; finding these Southeast Asian paintings in rock shelters suggests the images were not inspired by life within caves as they are believed to be in Europe. The findings suggest the ancient people brought the practice of creating semi-permanent images on rocky surfaces from Africa to Europe and Asia.
"This significantly shifts debates about the origins of art-making and supports ideas that this fundamental human [behavior] began with our most ancient ancestors in Africa rather than Europe," Professor Taçon said.
The findings could also have implications for ancient Australian rock art, because the oldest art in Kakadu-Arnhem Land and other parts of northern Australia are also stencil drawings displaying wild animals. These rock-painting rituals may have been brought to Australia during the initial colonization of the region or were introduced early-on by a cultural contact that was lost in history.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Antiquity.
