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A hand stencil on Indonesia’s Muna Island has been dated to at least 67,800 years ago, making it the oldest demonstrated minimum-age constraint reported in the studies discussed here. The finding does not mean the painting predates humans: its maker was a hominin, and the study favors Homo sapiens while acknowledging that the artist’s identity cannot be established with certainty.
What did archaeologists find?
The discovery is a hand stencil at Liang Metanduno on Muna Island, part of Sulawesi, Indonesia. A stencil is made by placing a hand against a surface and applying pigment around it, leaving its outline visible. The image is partly covered by ancient calcium carbonate, or calcite. In a January 2026 paper, researchers used laser-ablation uranium-series analysis of that overlying calcite to establish a minimum age for the art. Read the Nature study.
The paper reports a date of 71.6 ± 3.8 thousand years for the calcite and derives a minimum age of 67.8 thousand years for the stencil. The calcite formed on top of the pigment, so the artwork must predate it. The result is a conservative lower bound, not a direct measurement of the pigment or an exact date for when the hand was placed on the wall.
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Was the painting made before humans existed?
No. The phrase in the November 2025 Indian Defence Review headline is misleading. The painting is evidence of ancient image-making by humans or other hominins; it cannot have been made before humans existed.
The researchers favor Homo sapiens as the maker, citing an intentionally modified finger feature and the region’s chronology. But they also say the artist cannot be identified with certainty: archaic hominins lived on Sulawesi before modern humans, and the stencil itself does not provide a definitive species identification. “Possibly made by Homo sapiens” is more accurate than a categorical claim about the artist.
How does the discovery compare with other early cave art?
The Muna stencil is not the only very early Sulawesi artwork. These studies report minimum ages, generally based on calcite overgrowth above the art, rather than exact dates for when the images were made.
| Artwork | Reported minimum age | What the study reports |
|---|---|---|
| Liang Metanduno, Muna Island, Sulawesi | 67.8 thousand years (2026) | Hand stencil; the authors favor Homo sapiens as its maker but do not claim certainty. Nature, 2026 |
| Leang Karampuang, Sulawesi | 51.2 thousand years (2024) | Narrative scene in which figures are grouped so viewers can infer actions among them. Nature, 2024 |
| Leang Tedongnge, Sulawesi | 45.5 thousand years (reported in the 2024 study) | Figurative animal painting; the age is cited from a 2014 study. Nature, 2024 |
| Maros karsts, Sulawesi | 39.9 thousand years (2014) | Earliest hand stencil dated in the study. Nature, 2014 |
| Spain | 64.8 thousand years claimed | A hand stencil has been attributed to Neanderthals, but the 2024 Nature study says its dating evidence has been questioned. Nature, 2024 |
These are not identical kinds of evidence. The Muna and Maros examples are hand stencils, the Leang Tedongnge image is an animal figure, and Leang Karampuang is a narrative composition. Their minimum ages also do not, by themselves, establish the exact order in which the artworks were created.
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What does a minimum age tell us—and what does it not?
Uranium-series dating can estimate the age of calcite that formed over a painted surface. If that calcite lies above the pigment, its date shows that the underlying art is older than the overgrowth. It does not directly date the pigment, reveal the precise year the image was made, or show how long before the calcite formed the artist painted it.
That distinction matters when comparing ancient-art claims. A minimum-age constraint establishes that an image is at least a certain age; it is not interchangeable with an exact creation date. The 2024 Sulawesi study used laser-ablation U-series imaging to re-date calcite overgrowths. Its authors noted that conventional U-series dating evidence for some cave art, including the Spanish claims, has been questioned. The 2026 authors likewise describe their dates as conservative lower bounds.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Does this prove Neanderthals were the first artists?
No. The Muna study does not identify its artist as a Neanderthal; it favors Homo sapiens but leaves the maker uncertain. The Spanish hand-stencil claim has been attributed to Neanderthals, but its dating evidence is disputed in the 2024 Nature study. Neither claim establishes that Neanderthals were the first artists.
The Sulawesi findings support a more careful conclusion: people in the region were making images tens of thousands of years ago, and the Muna stencil pushes the demonstrated minimum-age constraint for that practice back to at least 67,800 years. The identity of its individual maker remains unresolved.
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