Northern Spain and southern France used to hold the record for the earliest known cave art. But their claim as the birthplace of human art has just been overthrown. Images found in a limestone cave in Sulawesi, Indonesia are the same age as their European counterparts. 

The images depict stenciled hands and animals along the walls of the cave. While the art had been discovered by Dutch researchers in the 1950s, it was assumed to be pre-Neolithic, dating from around 10,000 B.C. It had never been scientifically dated until this year, when a team of Australian scientists dated the rock art.

The team used a technique called U-series dating, in which small mineral deposits- colloquially referred to as a “cave popcorn”- are tested for their age. Water saturated with calcium carbonate leaves these small white deposits on the cave walls, which contain minute amounts of uranium. The rate of uranium decay is well known; it creates a daughter product known as thorium at a predictable rate.

Scientist Maxime Aubert of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia performed the delicate operation of slicing away the cave popcorn that had traces of art. The mineral deposits were then tested for age; a handprint was found to be 39,000 years old, while a drawing of a pig deer was over 35,000 years old.

Europe’s first paintings date back to roughly 40,000 years ago. This raises two hypotheses: did the urge to draw emerge separately among different human groups, or was art already part of an earlier existing culture that both groups brought to these places? The jury’s still out on that one.