Painting of pig estimated at 45,000 years old.
From The History Blog.
The image of a wild pig on a cave wall in Sulawesi,
Indonesia, has been dated to 45,500 years ago, making it the oldest known
cave art animal in the world. The life-sized Sulawesi warty pig (Sus
celebensis) was painted in dark red ochre on the limestone wall of Leang
Tedongnge cave. It was outlined in profile and filled in with lines and dashes.
There are two hand stencils over its hindquarters.
The pig was able
to be dated thanks to a coralloid speleothem, a tiny calcite deposit known as
cave popcorn, on one of its hind legs. Researchers chiseled the calcite from
the wall and conducted uranium-series isotope analysis on extracted
samples. The results found the pig was at least 45,500 years old, and very
likely older given the time it must have taken for the speleothem to form.
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/60483
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