Indonesian wildfires threaten world's oldest cave art dated by Griffith researchers
Fires came within 800 metres of a Sulawesi cave whose art Australian researchers dated to at least 51,200 years old.
Rock art on Sulawesi regarded as the oldest in the world, including works whose ages were established by scientists at Australia's Griffith University, is at risk from the heat and smoke of Indonesia's most severe wildfire season in over ten years, CNA and The Straits Times reported. Researchers warned the blazes could speed up the decay of the paintings.
The older of two works cited by the outlets is a red hand stencil on Muna island, off the Sulawesi coast, which is at least 67,800 years old. In the Maros-Pangkep district of South Sulawesi, the Griffith team found that a cave scene in which human-like figures interact with a pig goes back a minimum of 51,200 years.
The country has not faced fires this fierce since 2015. A strong El Nino has raised temperatures and reduced rain, so forests and peatland catch alight easily. Borneo and Sumatra have suffered most, but the blazes have also reached Sulawesi, among them the island's south, where the ancient images sit inside limestone caves.
According to firefighter Muhammad Ikfar, flames burned close to the Maros-Pangkep cave for over a week earlier this month, getting as near as 800 metres. Upwards of 270 hectares of the national park around the site were burnt from September 30 to October 18, he said. The park is also listed as a UNESCO Global Geopark.
Heat does the most damage, according to Griffith University archaeologist Basran Burhan. "Even without direct fire touching the paintings, it could ruin them because it changes the temperature around the paintings and accelerates the process of corrosion," he said.
Smoke ranks next, Burhan said. Soot settles over the artwork and hides it, leaving the images smudged and hard to make out.
Burhan said that unless "tactical mitigation efforts" came soon, Maros-Pangkep stood to lose an extraordinary record of the human past.
Crews were still battling blazes elsewhere in the park on Thursday and Friday, Ikfar said. The weather there remained dry, and no rain had come yet.
Sources: CNA, The world's oldest cave paintings in Indonesia under threat of wildfires; The Straits Times, World’s oldest cave paintings in Indonesia threatened by wildfires.
