title: Prehistoric Human Migration in Indonesia: A Rock Art Perspective
Creators: name: Oktaviana, Adhi A
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: rock art
subject: Indonesia
subject: prehistoric human migration
subject: LA-U-Series

description: This doctoral research focuses on rock art dating in Indonesia. A novel approach has been developed--laser ablation uranium-series dating--enabling the rapid and accurate dating of calcium carbonate deposits found in association with rock art in limestone karst environments (Oktaviana et al., 2024a). This approach will revolutionize rock art dating worldwide. To demonstrate its efficacy, we have redated the oldest known narrative composition so far discovered, a rock art depiction of a hunting scene from Leang Bulu' Sipong 4 in the Maros-Pangkep karsts of southwestern Sulawesi. At a minimum of 48,000 years old, this art it is at least 4,040 years older than previously thought (Aubert et al., 2019; Oktaviana et al., 2024a). Laser ablation uranium-series dating was also used to date a newly discovered narrative scene in Maros-Pangkep. The results indicate that the origin of visual storytelling in humans goes back at least 51,200 years (Oktaviana et al., 2024a). This, together with other early rock art narrative scenes from this region of South Sulawesi, (Aubert et al., 2014, 2019; Brumm et al., 2021), suggest that the representation of composed scenes in early Palaeolithic rock art was more common than previously thought, providing a unique and intimate window into the minds of modern humans at that time. This paper has been accepted for publication in the high-impact scientific journal Nature. Rock art was also discovered and dated in other areas of Sulawesi (Oktaviana et al., 2024b; 2024c). In the Bone karst region of southwestern Sulawesi, a spectacular rock art site is described in detail. The site was not subject to our novel dating approach owing to the absence calcium carbonate materials covering some of the art. However, the depicted subject matter and style of execution suggest a similar Pleistocene origin, but an earlier age cannot be completely excluded (Oktaviana et al., 2024c). A series of Pleistocene human hand stencils were also dated from several sites in southeastern Sulawesi, indicating that Palaeolithic rock art is not limited to the southwestern peninsula of this Indonesian island. Notably, a human hand stencil from Muna island (a satellite island of Sulawesi) is dated to at least 62,700 years ago (Oktaviana et al., 2024b). This age firmly places modern humans on the northern island chains of Indonesia, one of two major possible migration routes proposed for the colonization of Sahul (Australia and New Guinea joined at lower sea levels) (Birdsell, 1977; Kealy et al., 2017, 2018; Norman et al., 2018; Bird et al., 2019), and matches early dates for our species arrival in Australia (Clarkson et al., 2017). Moreover, it suggests that the first humans to reach Sahul were making rock art, with obvious and important implications for the likely antiquity of the earliest rock art of Australia and Papua. This PhD research shows that Pleistocene rock art can be used to trace the migrations of early modern humans in Indonesia. The Indonesian archipelago is also host to vast collections of more recent rock art. Some of this art is attributed to the arrival of the Austronesian culture in the region. The Austronesian Painting Tradition (APT) is, however, poorly dated. The laser ablation uranium-series dating approach was used to provide the largest collections of dates for APT rock art ever produced (Oktaviana et al., 2024b; 2024d). The dating shows that most of this art is Holocene in age and confirms the rapid expansion of this culture with essentially similar arrival ages for Sulawesi and Papua some ~4,000 years ago (Oktaviana et al., 2024b; 2024d). However, some of the dated motifs are clearly older and their ages and possible attribution to the APT (e.g. Arifin &amp; Delanghe, 2004; Gonthier et al., 2013; Leihitu &amp; Permana, 2019; Permana, 2019) suggest that these older paintings could have influenced the development of the APT and that this tradition could have originated in this region instead of the Austronesian home world of Taiwan or the northern Philippines (Bulbeck, 2008; O'Connor et al., 2015; Hoerman, 2016; Jalandoni, 2021). Finally, recent ages for some motifs suggest that this tradition continued to evolved and that rock paintings were still being produced a few hundred years ago (Oktaviana et al., 2024b; 2024d).