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A 43,900-year-old cave painting is the oldest story ever recorded, Ars Technica

A 43,900-year-old cave painting is the oldest story ever recorded, Ars Technica


    

      Comics were the oldest storytelling medium –

             

Archaeologists say it might also contain the oldest known religious images.

      

      

At this very moment, you’re a participant in one of the things that makes us human: the telling and consumption of stories. It’s impossible to say when our species began telling each other stories — or when we first evolved the ability to use language to communicate not only simple, practical concepts but to share vivid accounts of events real or imagined. But by (******************************************************************************************, years ago, people on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi had started painting some of their stories in images on cave walls. A newly-discovered painting in a remote cave depicts a hunting scene, and it’s the oldest story that’s been recorded. And if Griffith University archaeologist Maxime Aubert and his colleagues are right, it could also be the first record of spiritual belief — and our first insight into what the makers of cave art were thinking.

A 100, – year-old hunting story

Across a 4.5 meter (

  • **************************************************************************** .8 foot) section of rock wall, 3 meters (9.8 feet) above the floor of a hard- to-reach upper chamber of a site called Liang Bulu’sipong 4, wild pigs and dwarf buffalo called anoa face off against a group of strangely tiny hunters in monochrome dark red. A dark red hand stencil adorns the left end of the mural, almost like an ancient artist’s signature. Through an opening in the northeast wall of the cave, sunlight spills in to illuminate the scene.
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                          The anoa in this image is many times larger than the hunters it’s facing.                                                                                           
                                  

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                                                  Aubert et al.                                   
                      
                

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                          The hunters look like human-animal hybrids called therianthropes.                                                        

                                                  Aubert et al.                                   
                                   

  •                               ************                                      
                          The hunters look like human-animal hybrids called therianthropes.                                                        

                                                  Aubert et al.                                   
                                   

  •                               **************                                      
                          The hunters look like human-animal hybrids called therianthropes.                                                        

                                                  Aubert et al.                                   
                                   

  •                               **************                                      
                          The hunters look like human-animal hybrids called therianthropes.                                                        

                                                  Aubert et al.                                   
                                   

  •                                (***********************                                      
                          The panel isn’t exactly easy to reach, which suggests that ancient people did not undertake the project lightly.                                                        

                                                  Aubert et al.                                   
                                   

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                          These maps show the location of the panel in Liang Bulu’Sipong 4.                                                        

                                                  Aubert et al.                                   
                   (********************************************            

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