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The oldest currently reported cave-wall art is a faded hand stencil at Liang Metanduno on Muna Island, southeastern Sulawesi. A 2026 Nature study gives the image a minimum age of 67,800 years. It is older than any other securely dated Sulawesi cave art, but it is not a figurative painting or a complete storytelling scene. The earliest known representational composition remains the 51,200-year-old Leang Karampuang image of human-like figures interacting with a pig.
What was discovered at Liang Metanduno?
The dated artwork is a small surviving patch of a hand stencil on a cave wall. The image was made by placing a hand against the surface and applying pigment around it, leaving the hand-shaped negative. One fingertip appears deliberately narrowed, suggesting that the maker modified the hand’s outline rather than producing an accidental mark.
Because the surviving pigment is incomplete and faded, the discovery does not show a preserved scene, animal portrait or recognizable narrative. Its importance is chronological: it establishes the oldest demonstrated minimum age yet reported for cave-wall art attributed in the study’s context to our species.
How old is the stencil, exactly?
The correct wording is “at least 67,800 years old.” Researchers used laser-ablation uranium-series imaging to date calcium-carbonate (calcite) that formed over the pigment. The mineral crust must have formed after the stencil, so its age provides a minimum constraint on the artwork. It does not identify the exact year the stencil was made.
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| Figure | What it refers to | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|
| 67,800 years | Liang Metanduno hand stencil, Nature (2026) | Minimum age for the art |
| 71,600 ± 3,800 years | U-series age reported for the overlying calcite | Measured mineral age; distinct from the rounded minimum-age claim for the stencil |
| 51,200 years | Leang Karampuang composition, Nature (2024) | Minimum age for an early figurative, narrative image |
| 48,000 years | Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 hunting scene, revised in 2024 | Minimum age after re-dating |
Why the 51,200-year-old scene is still crucial
Liang Metanduno is older art, but Leang Karampuang is the more direct evidence for early visual storytelling. That composition shows human-like figures interacting with a pig, creating a relationship between characters and an animal rather than a single isolated mark.
Adhi Agus Oktaviana, an Indonesian rock-art specialist and coauthor of the 2024 study, said: “Humans have probably been telling stories for much longer than 51,200 years, but as words do not fossilise we can only go by indirect proxies like depictions of scenes in art – and the Sulawesi art is now the oldest such evidence by far that is known to archaeology.” The statement concerns the narrative scene, not the older Liang Metanduno stencil.
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How certain is the maker’s identity?
The 2026 researchers favor Homo sapiens because the modified fingertip and the regional archaeological chronology fit human occupation of Sulawesi. However, the image itself cannot determine the maker’s species directly. The defensible claim is that the attribution is consistent with Homo sapiens, not that the stencil provides biological proof of the artist’s taxon.
What this changes about early human art
The dates indicate that Sulawesi supported a long-running rock-art tradition extending well beyond the age of the newly dated stencil. The sequence now includes an exceptionally early hand stencil, a later figurative scene, and other paintings whose minimum ages have been revised as dating methods improved.
The findings also bear on models of early movement toward Sahul, the Ice Age landmass that included Australia and New Guinea. That connection is an inference from the art’s location and age; the stencil does not depict migration or identify the route people took.
Can you visit the paintings?
The famous Leang Karampuang paintings are not open to public access, according to the Google Arts & Culture exhibit describing the site. Preservation is the reason given for restricting entry. The exhibit instead provides a virtual tour, which is the appropriate way to view the imagery without exposing fragile mineral surfaces and pigments to additional damage.
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- A winning combo of art and science.
- Curriculum tie-in potential to prehistory, art, anthropology, and geography.
- Stunning artwork and design.
- Robust back matter includes world map with keyed rock art sites, author’s note, info about the Lascaux Caves, glossary, and timeline.
- Read more books by Hannah Salyer such as Packs: Strength in Numbers.
A changing record of “the oldest cave painting”
Older headlines often called a warty-pig image in Sulawesi the world’s oldest figurative cave painting, using a rounded age of 45,000 years reported in 2021. The 2024 uranium-series work moved the relevant records to at least 51,200 years for Leang Karampuang and 48,000 years for the Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 hunting scene. The 2026 result is older still, but its subject is a hand stencil rather than a representational composition.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The Bottom Line
Liang Metanduno now holds the oldest reported minimum age for Sulawesi cave-wall art—at least 67,800 years—while Leang Karampuang remains the key evidence for an early painted story. Keeping those two records separate avoids turning a very old hand stencil into a claim it cannot support.
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