The World’s Oldest Cave Art Was Just Discovered in Indonesia

By Danial Martinus • 23 Jan 2026 in News

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Study co-author Maxime Aubert examining a cave painting in a Muna island cave. (source: Reuters)

A joint team of Indonesian and Australian archaeologists has just announced the discovery of the world’s oldest cave art on Muna island, Indonesia.

Dating back at least 67,800 years, a faint red handprint pressed against a cave wall has forced archaeologists to rethink just how far back human art and migration go.

Fresh clues about how humans spread across the globe

Cave paintings found on Muna island, dating back at least 67,800 years. (source: Maxime Aubert / Associated Press via Al Jazeera)

The team, whose findings were published in the scientific journal Nature, had been working in Indonesia for quite a long time when they made the discovery. Following a hunch, they decided to explore caves on Muna island on the advice of Indonesian archaeologist Adhi Agus Oktaviana, who led the study.

What they found were “handprints in negative, stencilled, probably using red ochre”. These are pretty common traits when it comes to prehistoric art, but there was something a little different about it. The digits on one hand had been retouched with pointed claws instead of regular human fingers.

Handprints with their fingertips sharpened to look like claws. (source: Ahdi Agus Oktaviana & Maxime Aubert / Associated Press via Al Jazeera)

According to study co-author Maxime Aubert, it’s a style of painting only seen in Sulawesi.

The researchers determined the cave art’s age by using laser technology to analyse uranium decay in tiny 5mm fragment samples of calcite, otherwise known as “cave popcorn”.

They say the method is “very precise”, making the new discovery more than 15,000 years older than previous cave art found in Sulawesi.

A wider shot of the cave paintings on Muna island. (source: AFP via The Straits Times)

The find gives researchers more to think about with regard to how Homo sapiens first reached Australia. One theory suggests they crossed from Sulawesi into Papua New Guinea, which was once connected to Australia as part of the Sahul supercontinent.

Another theory posits that they took on a southern path towards Sumatra, Java, and Timor.

“These paintings provide the first evidence that modern humans were on these Indonesian islands at that time,” Aubert says, adding that the new discovery “reinforces the idea that people arrived in Australia via Papua, perhaps around 65,000 years ago”.