Saturday, January 24, 2026

World’s oldest rock art holds clues to early human migration to Australia

A hand stencil on the wall of a cave in Indonesia has become the oldest known rock art in the world, exceeding the archaeologists’ previous discovery in the same region by 15,000 years or more.

Griffith University

image:
67,800 yr old hand stencil, Muna, Sulawesi
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Credit: Supplied by Max Aubert

An international team, co-led by Griffith University researchers, Indonesia’s national research and innovation agency (BRIN) and Southern Cross University, discovered and dated cave paintings made by our species on the island of Sulawesi at least 67,800 years ago.

The research team said the findings advance our understanding of how and when Australia first came to be settled, with the Sulawesi art very likely created by a population closely linked to the ancestors of Indigenous Australians.

Preserved in limestone caves in southeastern Sulawesi on the satellite island of Muna, a fragmentary hand stencil was found surrounded by painted art of a much more recent origin.

The team applied advanced uranium-series dating techniques, analysing microscopic mineral deposits that formed both on top of and, in some cases, beneath the paintings from Liang Metanduno, providing a time period during which the art was made.

The hand stencil was dated to a minimum of 67,800 years ago, making it the oldest reliably dated cave art yet discovered, significantly older than the rock painting found in Sulawesi by the same researchers in 2024.

The new finding also revealed the Muna cave was used for making art over an exceptionally long period, with paintings produced repeatedly for at least 35,000 years, continuing until about 20,000 years ago.

“It is now evident from our new phase of research that Sulawesi was home to one of the world’s richest and most longstanding artistic cultures, one with origins in the earliest history of human occupation of the island at least 67,800 years ago,” said Professor Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist and geochemist from the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research (GCSCR), who co-led the study.

The team also observed the hand stencil was a globally unique variant of this motif.

After the stencil was created, it was altered to deliberately narrow the negative outlines of the fingers, creating the overall impression of a claw-like hand.

Professor Adam Brumm, from Griffith University’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE), who co-led the study, said the symbolic meaning of the narrowed fingers was a matter for speculation.

“This art could symbolise the idea that humans and animals were closely connected, something we already seem to see in the very early painted art of Sulawesi, with at least one instance of a scene portraying figures that we interpret as representations of part-human, part-animal beings,” Professor Brumm said.

Dr Adhi Agus Oktaviana, a rock art specialist in BRIN and a team lead, whose doctoral research at Griffith University formed part of this study, said the paintings had far-reaching implications for our understanding of the deep-time history of Australian Aboriginal culture.

“It is very likely that the people who made these paintings in Sulawesi were part of the broader population that would later spread through the region and ultimately reach Australia,” Dr Oktaviana said.

There had been considerable archaeological debate about the timing of initial human occupation of the Pleistocene-era landmass that encompassed what is now Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, known as Sahul.

Scholarly opinion was divided between the so-named short chronology model, whereby the first people entered the Sahul ‘supercontinent’ about 50,000 years ago, and the opposing long chronology model, in which they arrived at least 65,000 years ago.

“This discovery strongly supports the idea that the ancestors of the First Australians were in Sahul by 65,000 years ago,” Dr Oktaviana said.

There were two main migration routes into Sahul proposed by researchers: a northern route to the New Guinea portion of this landmass via Sulawesi and the ‘Spice Islands’ and a more southerly route that took the sea voyagers directly to the Australian mainland via Timor or adjacent islands.

Professor Renaud Joannes-Boyau from the Geoarchaeology and Archaeometry Research Group (GARG) at Southern Cross University, who co-led the research, said the discovery sheds light on the most likely course of humans’ ancient island-hopping journey from mainland Asia to Sahul via the northern route.

“With the dating of this extremely ancient rock art in Sulawesi, we now have the oldest direct evidence for the presence of modern humans along this northern migration corridor into Sahul,” Professor Joannes-Boyau said.

“These discoveries underscore the archaeological importance of the many other Indonesian islands between Sulawesi and westernmost New Guinea,” said Professor Aubert, who, together with professors Brumm and Joannes-Boyau, continues to search for more evidence of early human art and occupation along the northern route with funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

The ARC’s backing forms part of a broader investment in human origins research, including the recently awarded ARC Centre of Excellence for Transforming Human Origins Research, with Griffith University as lead institution, and the ARC Training Centre for Advancing Archaeology in the Resources Sector at Southern Cross University, aiming at advancing our global understanding of human evolution and preserving our heritage.

The research was also supported by Google Arts & Culture and the National Geographic Society.

The research on early rock art in Sulawesi has been featured in a documentary film, ‘Sulawesi l'île des premières images’ produced by ARTE, released in Europe today.

The study titled ‘Rock art from at least 67,800 years ago in Sulawesi’ has been published in Nature.

Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-09968-y

Method of Research

Imaging analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

World’s oldest rock art holds clues to early human migration to Australia

Article Publication Date

21-Jan-2026

Dr Adhi Agus Oktaviana illuminates another hand stencil found on Sulawesi

Credit

Supplied by Max Aubert

Map showing the island of Muna, Sulawesi

Credit

Generated by M. Kottermair and A. Jalandoni using ArcGIS.

Leang Metanduno, Muna, Sulawesi

Credit

Supplied by Ratno Sardi

Cave entrance, Muna, Sulawesi

Credit

Supplied by Ratno Sardi

67,800 yr old hand stencil (with highlight)

Credit

Supplied by Max Aubert

New 2.6-million-year-old Paranthropus fossil reshapes understanding of early hominins

A partial lower jaw discovered in Afar, Ethiopia expands the known geographic distribution of Paranthropus northward by 1000 km, revealing the genus to be more widespread and adaptively versatile than previously thought.

University of Chicago Medical Center

Newly discovered fossil alongside other hominin mandible specimens — image:
*Top: Multiple views of MLP-3000-1, the newly discovered* Paranthropus *partial left mandible and molar crown. Bottom: MLP-3000-1 in side-by-side comparison with mandible fossils from other species —* Australopithecus afarensis *(A.L. 266-1),* Paranthropus aethiopicus (OMO-57/4-1968-41 and OMO-18-1967-18), and early Homo (LD 350-1).
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Credit: Image courtesy of Alemseged Research Group

In a new paper published in Nature, a team led by University of Chicago paleoanthropologist Professor Zeresenay Alemseged reports the discovery of the first Paranthropus specimen from the Afar region of Ethiopia, 1000 km north of the genus’ previous northernmost occurrence. This finding offers significant new information about when and where Paranthropus existed, its adaptation to diverse environmental conditions, and how it may have interacted with other ancient relatives of modern humans including our genus Homo.

“If we are to understand our own evolutionary trajectory as a genus and species, we need to understand the environmental, ecological, and competitive factors that shaped our evolution,” said Alemseged, the Donald N. Pritzker Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at UChicago. “This discovery is so much more than a simple snapshot of Paranthropus’ occurrence: It sheds fresh light on the driving forces behind the evolution of the genus.”

Paranthropus previously “missing” among hominins in the Afar and northeast Africa

Since the human and chimpanzee lineages diverged around 7 million years ago, human ancestors went through a dramatic evolutionary process that ultimately led to the emergence of Homo sapiens around 300,000 years ago.

“We strive to understand who we are and how we became to be human, and that has implications for how we behave and how we are going to impact the environment around us, and how that, in turn, is going to impact us,” Alemseged said.

In the fossil record, the human lineage is represented by over 15 hominin species that generally fit into four groups:

Facultative bipeds, e.g. Ardipithecus — Occasionally bipedal but mostly living in trees and walking on all four limbs.
Habitual bipeds: Australopithecus — Retained arboreality to some degree but mostly practiced upright walking and experimented with stone tools.
Obligate bipeds: Homo — The genus to which modern humans belong, characterized by a larger brain, sophisticated tools and obligate bipedalism.
Robust hominins: Paranthropus (also known as robust australopithecines) — Habitually bipedal like Australopithecus but distinguished by extremely large molars capped by thick enamel and facial and muscular configurations that suggest a powerful chewing apparatus.

Alemseged said: “Hundreds of fossils representing over a dozen species of Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, and Homo had been found in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, so the apparent absence of Paranthropus was conspicuous and puzzling to paleoanthropologists, many of whom had concluded the genus simply never ventured that far north.”

He added, “While some experts suggested that dietary specialization restricted Paranthropus to southern regions, others hypothesized that this could have been the result of Paranthropus’ inability to compete with the more versatile Homo.” However, Alemseged said, “neither was the case: Paranthropus was as widespread and versatile as Homo and the new find shows that its absence in the Afar was an artifact of the fossil record.”

Rethinking hominin biogeography, adaptation, and competition

The 2.6-million-year-old partial jaw reported in Nature comes from the Mille-Logya research area in the Afar and is one of the oldest Paranthropus specimens unearthed to date. After recovering as many fragments as possible from the field site, the team brought them back to Chicago to analyze internal anatomy and morphology with powerful micro-CT scanning.

“It’s a remarkable nexus: an ultra-modern technology being applied to a 2.6-million-year-old fossil to tell a story that is common to us all,” Alemseged said.

This new find shows that Paranthropus was as widespread and versatile as Homo and was not necessarily outcompeted by Homo.

Paranthropus was previously nicknamed the “nutcracker” genus, highlighting the very large molars, thick enamel, and heavy jaws and reflecting assumptions that this chewing apparatus caused Paranthropus to occupy a highly specialized and narrower dietary niche. But the new Paranthropus from Afar reveals that starting from its earliest origins, Paranthropus was widespread, versatile, and able to crack more than just nuts.

“The new discovery gives us insight into the competitive edges that each group had, the type of diet they were consuming, the type of muscular and skeletal adaptations that they had, whether they were using stone tools or not — all parts of their adaptation and behavior that we are trying to figure out,” Alemseged said. “Discoveries like this really trigger interesting questions in terms of reviewing, revising, and then coming up with new hypotheses as to what the key differences were between the main hominin groups.”

Professor Zeresenay Alemseged sifts through unidentified fossil fragments in the field to find parts of a Paranthropus specimen.

Fossils in discovery location (IMAGE)

University of Chicago Medical Center

Two fragments of the newly discovered mandible specimen in the location they were originally found

The fragments of the Paranthropus mandible after being assembled in the field by Professor Zeresenay Alemseged
Credit
Image courtesy of Alemseged Research Group

Research in the field and at the National Museum of Ethiopia is conducted with permission and under the auspices of the Ethiopian Heritage Authority of the Ministry of Tourism. Field work is undertaken with additional permission from the Afar Regional State Tourism and Culture Bureau. Funding to support field work was provided by Margaret and Will Hearst and the University of Chicago.

“First Afar Paranthropus fossil expands the distribution of a versatile genus” was published in Nature in January 2026. Co-authors are Zeresenay Alemseged, Fred Spoor, Denné Reed, W. Andrew Barr, Denis Geraads, René Bobe and Jonathan G. Wynn.