Narrative cave art in Indonesia by 51,200 years ago.

Previous dating research indicated that the Indonesian island of Sulawesi is host to some of the oldest known rock art. That work was based on solution uranium-series (U-series) analysis of calcite deposits overlying rock art in the limestone caves of Maros-Pangkep, South Sulawesi. Here we use a novel application of this approach-laser-ablation U-series imaging-to re-date some of the earliest cave art in this karst area and to determine the age of stylistically similar motifs at other Maros-Pangkep sites.

Earliest known funerary rites in Wallacea after the last glacial maximum.

The insular region of Wallacea has become a focal point for studying Pleistocene human ecological and cultural adaptations in island environments, however, little is understood about early burial traditions during the Pleistocene. Here we investigate maritime interactions and burial practices at Ratu Mali 2, an elevated coastal cave site on the small island of Kisar in the Lesser Sunda Islands of eastern Indonesia dated to 15,500-3700 cal. BP.

Surgical amputation of a limb 31,000 years ago in Borneo.

The prevailing view regarding the evolution of medicine is that the emergence of settled agricultural societies around 10,000 years ago (the Neolithic Revolution) gave rise to a host of health problems that had previously been unknown among non-sedentary foraging populations, stimulating the first major innovations in prehistoric medical practices. Such changes included the development of more advanced surgical procedures, with the oldest known indication of an 'operation' formerly thought to have consisted of the skeletal remains of a European Neolithic farmer (found in Buthiers-Boulancourt, France) whose left forearm had been surgically removed and then partially healed. Dating to around 7,000 years ago, this accepted case of amputation would have required comprehensive knowledge of human anatomy and considerable technical skill, and has thus been viewed as the earliest evidence of a complex medical act.

Genome of a middle Holocene hunter-gatherer from Wallacea.

Much remains unknown about the population history of early modern humans in southeast Asia, where the archaeological record is sparse and the tropical climate is inimical to the preservation of ancient human DNA. So far, only two low-coverage pre-Neolithic human genomes have been sequenced from this region. Both are from mainland Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherer sites: Pha Faen in Laos, dated to 7939-7751 calibrated years before present (yr cal BP; present taken as AD 1950), and Gua Cha in Malaysia (4.

Oldest cave art found in Sulawesi.

Indonesia harbors some of the oldest known surviving cave art. Previously, the earliest dated rock art from this region was a figurative painting of a Sulawesi warty pig (). This image from Leang Bulu' Sipong 4 in the limestone karsts of Maros-Pangkep, South Sulawesi, was created at least 43,900 years ago (43.

Early ground axe technology in Wallacea: The first excavations on Obi Island.

The first excavations on Obi Island, north-east Wallacea, reveal three phases of occupation beginning in the terminal Pleistocene. Ground shell artefacts appear at the end of the terminal Pleistocene, the earliest examples in Wallacea. In the subsequent early Holocene occupation phase, ground stone axe flakes appear, which are again the earliest examples in Wallacea.