Australian researchers have dated some of the oldest known figurative art.

Cave paintings in Borneo have been dated to as early as 40,000 years ago, making them among the world’s oldest examples of figurative depiction.

The finding adds to the growing view that cave art – one of the most important innovations in human cultural history – did not arise in Europe as long believed, and that ‘ice age’ artists in Southeast Asia played a key role in its development.

A team led by led by Griffith University’s Associate Professor Maxime Aubert have obtained uranium-series dates from calcium carbonate samples collected from Kalimantan cave art, located in an Indonesian province of Borneo.

They have provided the first reliable estimates for the approximate time of rock art production.

“The oldest cave art image we dated is a large painting of an unidentified animal, probably a species of wild cattle still found in the jungles of Borneo – this has a minimum age of around 40,000 years and is now the earliest known figurative artwork,” Associate Professor Aubert said.

The Kalimantan stencil art was shown to be similar in age, suggesting that a Palaeolithic rock art tradition first appeared on Borneo between about 52,000 and 40,000 years ago.

Dating also indicated that a major change occurred within this culture around 20,000 years ago, giving rise to a new rock art style (including rare portrayals of humans) at a time when the global ice age climate was at its most extreme.

“Who the ice age artists of Borneo were and what happened to them is a mystery,” said team co-leader Dr Pindi Setiawan, an Indonesian archaeologist.

“The new findings illustrate that the story of how cave art emerged is complex,” Dr Oktaviana said.

Europe has long been seen as the centre for cave art development.

Although Borneo is the Earth’s third largest island, throughout most of the ice age it actually formed the easternmost tip of the vast continental region of Eurasia – at the western extremity of this 13,000 km-wide landmass was Europe.

“It now seems that two early cave art provinces arose at a similar time in remote corners of Palaeolithic Eurasia: one in Europe, and one in Indonesia at the opposite end of this ice age world,” said Associate Professor Adam Brumm, a Griffith archaeologist also involved in the study.

“Our research suggests that rock art spread from Borneo into Sulawesi and other new worlds beyond Eurasia, perhaps arriving with the first people to colonise Australia.”

The full study is accessible here.