| Title |
Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Nature, October 2014
|
| DOI | 10.1038/nature13422 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
M. Aubert, A. Brumm, M. Ramli, T. Sutikna, E. W. Saptomo, B. Hakim, M. J. Morwood, G. D. van den Bergh, L. Kinsley, A. Dosseto |
| Abstract |
Archaeologists have long been puzzled by the appearance in Europe ∼40-35 thousand years (kyr) ago of a rich corpus of sophisticated artworks, including parietal art (that is, paintings, drawings and engravings on immobile rock surfaces) and portable art (for example, carved figurines), and the absence or scarcity of equivalent, well-dated evidence elsewhere, especially along early human migration routes in South Asia and the Far East, including Wallacea and Australia, where modern humans (Homo sapiens) were established by 50 kyr ago. Here, using uranium-series dating of coralloid speleothems directly associated with 12 human hand stencils and two figurative animal depictions from seven cave sites in the Maros karsts of Sulawesi, we show that rock art traditions on this Indonesian island are at least compatible in age with the oldest European art. The earliest dated image from Maros, with a minimum age of 39.9 kyr, is now the oldest known hand stencil in the world. In addition, a painting of a babirusa ('pig-deer') made at least 35.4 kyr ago is among the earliest dated figurative depictions worldwide, if not the earliest one. Among the implications, it can now be demonstrated that humans were producing rock art by ∼40 kyr ago at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 355 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 45 | 13% |
| United States | 41 | 12% |
| Spain | 16 | 5% |
| Australia | 15 | 4% |
| Japan | 9 | 3% |
| France | 9 | 3% |
| Indonesia | 9 | 3% |
| Netherlands | 5 | 1% |
| Canada | 4 | 1% |
| Other | 40 | 11% |
| Unknown | 162 | 46% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 274 | 77% |
| Scientists | 65 | 18% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 11 | 3% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 5 | 1% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 510 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 5 | <1% |
| United States | 3 | <1% |
| Indonesia | 2 | <1% |
| France | 2 | <1% |
| Spain | 2 | <1% |
| Australia | 1 | <1% |
| Taiwan | 1 | <1% |
| Argentina | 1 | <1% |
| Romania | 1 | <1% |
| Other | 5 | <1% |
| Unknown | 487 | 95% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 94 | 18% |
| Researcher | 87 | 17% |
| Student > Bachelor | 60 | 12% |
| Student > Master | 57 | 11% |
| Professor | 28 | 5% |
| Other | 91 | 18% |
| Unknown | 93 | 18% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Arts and Humanities | 102 | 20% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 77 | 15% |
| Social Sciences | 44 | 9% |
| Earth and Planetary Sciences | 33 | 6% |
| Psychology | 22 | 4% |
| Other | 110 | 22% |
| Unknown | 122 | 24% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1309. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 12 April 2024.
All research outputs
#10,230
of 25,721,020 outputs
Outputs from Nature
#1,045
of 98,577 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#45
of 268,374 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Nature
#10
of 1,073 outputs
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