The DOI matches its Crossref record; 31 of the 35 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Earliest hunting scene in prehistoric art
Open accessAbstract
Humans seem to have an adaptive predisposition for inventing, telling and consuming stories 1 . Prehistoric cave art provides the most direct insight that we have into the earliest storytelling 2-5 , in the form of narrative compositions or 'scenes' 2,5 that feature clear figurative depictions of sets of figures in spatial proximity to each other, and from which one can infer actions taking place among the figures 5 . The Upper Palaeolithic cave art of Europe hosts the oldest previously known images of humans and animals interacting in recognizable scenes 2,5 , and of therianthropes 6,7 -abstract beings that combine qualities of both people and animals, and which arguably communicated narrative fiction of some kind (folklore, religious myths, spiritual beliefs and so on). In this record of creative expression (spanning from about 40 thousand years ago (ka) until the beginning of the Holocene epoch at around 10 ka), scenes in cave art are generally rare and chronologically late (dating to about 21-14 ka) 7 , and clear representations of therianthropes are uncommon 6 -the oldest such image is a carved figurine from Germany of a human with a feline head (dated to about 40-39 ka) 8 . Here we describe an elaborate rock art panel from the limestone cave of Leang Bulu' Sipong 4 (Sulawesi, Indonesia) that portrays several figures that appear to represent therianthropes hunting wild pigs and dwarf bovids; this painting has been dated to at least 43.9 ka on the basis of uranium-series…
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“This art, estimated to be more than 40,000 years old, displays a scene with tiny figures armed with spears and ropes who appear to be hunting a wild cow (Fig. 3, right).”
From Stories in Action. (2022) · cites this paper as Aubert et al., 2019
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Metadata
- Authors
- Aubert, M., Lebe, R., Oktaviana, A. A., Tang, M., Burhan, B., Hamrullah, Jusdi, A., Abdullah, Hakim, B., Zhao, J.-X., Geria, I. M., Sulistyarto, P. H., Sardi, R., & Brumm, A.
- Affiliations
- Griffith University (AU)
- Balai Arkeologi Sulawesi Selatan (ID)
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional (ID)
- Corresponding author
- Brumm, Adam
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2019-12-11
- Volume
- 576
- Issue
- 7787
- Pages
- 442-445
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2996642588
- Cited by
- 330
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 65 · 2023: 75 · 2022: 46 · 2021: 53 · 2020: 31 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 98.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Commons - University of South Florida (University of South Florida) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Griffith Research Online (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Archeology › Archaeology and Rock Art Studies
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology (arts and humanities) › Archaeological and Geological Studies
- Keywords
- prehistoric cave art, Upper Palaeolithic, hunting scenes, storytelling, figurative art, Sulawesi, wild pigs, human-animal interaction
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cattle, Female, Humans, Human Activities, Indonesia, Paintings, Swine, Narration, History, Ancient, Radiometric Dating, Caves
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