Using radiocarbon dating of 27 mud wasp nests, collected from over and under 16 similar paintings, it has been established that the rock art depicting the kangaroo that you can see at the top of this post is the oldest art found in Australia.
According to him study that details it, published in Nature Human Behavior, and carried out by researchers from the University of Melbourne, is has placed the painting between 17,100 and 17,500 years ago.
The kangaroo is painted on the sloping roof of a rock shelter on the Unghango clan estate on Balanggarra country, above the Drysdale River in the northeastern Kimberley region of Western Australia. According to postdoctoral researcher Dr. Damien Finch, who pioneered the exciting new radiocarbon technique:
We can never know what was in the artist's mind when he painted this work more than 600 generations ago, but we do know that the naturalistic period dates back to the Last Ice Age, so the environment was cooler and drier than it is today.
The next step for researchers is to date more wasp nests in contact with this and other styles of Kimberley rock art to establish, with greater precision, When each artistic period developed, when it began, and when it ended.
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The news
It is confirmed that this kangaroo is the oldest cave painting in Australia and is 17,500 years old
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.