A faint hand outline on a cave wall has now been dated to at least 67,800 years ago, making it the oldest reliably dated example of rock art.
That minimum age pushes confirmed cave art deeper into the Ice Age, and it changes where early symbolic culture clearly took hold.
A hidden stencil emerges
Tucked among newer paintings, the hand mark survived as a worn fragment until careful recording brought it back into view.
Researchers from Griffith University returned to Liang Metanduno on Muna Island, where the stencil lay hidden beneath later deposits.
Working from the university, archaeologist Adam Brumm and his field teams have continued to extend the known reach of cave art…