Millennial Art:
Australia’s oldest painting found

Archaeologists have discovered paintings created by natives 28 thousand years ago, in the cave of Navarla Gabarnmang.

Photo: Bryce Barker / AFP / Getty Images

One of the leading archaeologists said that he found the oldest example of rock art in Australia and one of the oldest in the world. Aboriginal works were stored for 28 thousand years in a remote cave, known as Navarla Gabarnmang, in the Northern Territories. Detailed photographs of the find will be published in the next issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Archaeologist Bryce Barker from the University of South Queensland said he discovered the rock last June, but only recently was able to process the results by radiocarbon dating in the laboratory of the New Zealand University of Waikato.

He noted that cave painting was applied with coal, so it is quite realistic to determine its age by the radiocarbon method. Most of the drawings in the caves were made with mineral paint, so it is not possible to establish their exact age.

Barker has no doubt that this is the oldest example of painting in Australia and one of the oldest in the world. Recently, the oldest, currently known, cave painting was discovered in Spain, where the patterns and red discs painted on the walls of the cave of El Castillo, are at least 40,800 years old. Scientists came to this conclusion after uranium-thorium dating.

Sally May, an archaeologist at the National University of Australia who was unable to help Barker, claims his find is “incredibly important.”

“I think it will not surprise anyone that rock art in Australia is so ancient, because we know that people lived here long before that, and there is no reason to assume that they were not engaged in creativity,” she notes.

Barker also said that he found evidence that the cave where he found rock art was inhabited 45 thousand years ago.

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