Photo author, Damien Finch
Australian scientists have discovered a rock painting of a kangaroo, which is about 17,300 years old.
This is the oldest such image ever found in the country.
The painting was found in Kimberley County, known for its large number of rock paintings left by indigenous peoples who lived here millennia ago.
The dating of the image was established thanks to radiocarbon analysis of the remains of wasp nests, which were also found on the spot.
If the sockets were built on top of the image, then the image itself must be older than them. If, on the contrary, the drawings are made on top of the remains of nests, the older ones are nests.
Thus, the researchers established the time range when the image of a kangaroo could be made.
“We dated the three nests below the picture and the three that lay above it. And we were able to find with certainty that it was 17,500 to 17,100 years old. Most likely, 17,300 years old,” said Damien Finch, a researcher at the University of Melbourne. .
Co-author Sven Uzman also added that there may be a link between this image of a kangaroo and the ancient art of other regions.
“This iconic image of a kangaroo is visually very similar to the rock paintings of the islands of Southeast Asia, which indicates a cultural connection,” he says.
Earlier this year, researchers discovered on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, the world’s oldest rock painting depicting an animal – a life-size drawing of a pig. He is about 45 thousand years old.
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