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Figuring out the age of ancient cave art (720 L)By?Los Angeles Times, adapted by Newsela staff10.14.14This undated photo provided by the journal Nature shows stencils of hands in a cave in Indonesia. Ancient cave drawings in Indonesia are as old as famous prehistoric art in Europe, according to a new study that shows our ancestors were drawing all over the world 40,000 years ago. Photo:?AP Photo/Kinez Riza, NatureCave paintings in Indonesia are much older than anyone thought.Archaeologists have discovered that the paintings date back 40,000 years. They were able to prove that art did not begin only in Europe.The paintings were first found in caves on Sulawesi in the 1950s. Sulawesi is an island in the Southwest Asian country of Indonesia. The paintings show animals and outlines of hands. Until now, archaeologists never tried to figure out how old they really were. The job of an archaeologist is to study how humans lived a long time ago.The discovery was published this week in the journal Science.There Must Be More Paintings Out ThereFor many years, archaeologists thought ancient humans painted the pictures about 10,000 years ago. It's now clear the Indonesian pictures were painted at about the same time as the earliest known cave paintings. Those paintings were created in caves in Spain and France. They were also painted about 40,000 years ago.“We now have 40,000-year-old rock art in Spain and Sulawesi,” said Adam Brumm. He is an archaeologist at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. Brumm helped write the study. He said he expects that more 40,000-year-old cave paintings will be found in other places.“I can say that it was a great—and very nice—surprise to read their findings,” said Wil Roebroeks. He is an archaeologist from Leiden University in the Netherlands, but was not involved in the study. When he read the paper, he said his reaction was “Wow!”Sampling The Cave PopcornThe researchers started on the project about three years ago. At the time, they did not know the age of the cave paintings. They just wanted to know the date for sure.To do that, the team relied on something called U-series dating. U-series was also used to date the cave art in Spain and France.First the team looked for paintings with small, white bumps on top. The bumps looked like little cauliflowers. Eventually, they found 14. Twelve of them covered the hand outlines. Two were on the drawings of animals.The white growths are known as cave popcorn. They are made of minerals left behind when water runs down cave walls. Scientists can test the minerals, which acts kind of like a clock, said Maxime Aubert. He is with the University of Wollongong in Australia. He is an expert on dating cave paintings.Using a tool with a diamond blade, Aubert cut into the cave popcorn. He removed small samples that included some of the paint color. The paint would be as old as the first layer of cave popcorn. If the scientists can date the cave popcorn, then they know the age of the paintings.One Big Surprise From ManyThe researchers found that one of the hand outlines was made at least 39,900 years ago. A painting of an animal was at least 35,400 years old. The animal is called a pig deer. It can still be found in Indonesia today.In Europe, a picture of a red circle is the oldest known cave painting. It was found in a Spanish cave. It was painted at least 40,800 years ago. The earliest painting of an animal, a rhinoceros, was found in the Chauvet Cave in France. It dates back 38,827 years.Humans made art at the same time on different continents. Archaeologists have two theories about how this happened.Each group may have come up with the idea separately, although they did not know about each other. There is a more interesting theory. Art may have already been invented by an even earlier people. These early humans brought their art with them as they traveled to new lands.For many years, scientists thought that humans in Europe were the only ones making art 40,000 years ago. Now, that idea has been proven wrong.The old "Europe, the birthplace of art" story was too simple to be true, Roebroeks said.The study of ancient humans has brought a lot of surprises over the last 10 years. "But this one is among my favorites,” he said. ................
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