Dreamlike pig-hunting scene is the world's oldest figurative art.

The article focuses on newly dated cave paintings in Sulawesi, Indonesia, which are at least 51,200 years old and represent the world's oldest known figurative art depicting human-animal hybrid figures in hunting scenes. Using a refined uranium-series dating technique on calcium carbonate deposits ("cave popcorn") formed over the pigments, archaeologists from Indonesia and Australia established these paintings predate similar European cave art by about 15,000 years. The findings suggest that early modern humans created these complex visual narratives shortly after migrating out of Africa, highlighting the deep cultural and possibly ritual significance of the art. While some scholars question the interpretation of the images as a narrative, the discovery challenges previous assumptions about the origins and geographic spread of early figurative art.