I struggled to stand on a narrow ridge winding between flooded rice fields. The almost harvested straw rippled in the breeze, making the valley look like a flickering green ocean. In the distance, steep limestone hills rise from the ground, about 400 feet high, and are the remains of an ancient coral reef. For millions of years, rivers have eroded the landscape here, leaving a flat plain, which is called karst, interrupted by these strange towers. These towers are covered with holes, passages and interconnected caves, which are carved by water seeping into rocks.

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Few people who buy relevant content every year can enter Jowett Cave. Our reporter is one of them. We are in Sulawesi, an hour's drive north of the busy port of Makasa. We approached the nearest karst without being scared by a group of big black macaques. They screamed at us from the tree on the cliff, then climbed the bamboo ladder, crossed the ferns and came to a cave called Leang Timpuseng. Inside, from the sounds of cows, cocks and passing motorcycles in daily life, there is almost no continuous singing of insects and birds. The cave is narrow and clumsy, and the rocks squeeze into the space, giving people a feeling that it may be closed at any time. But its simple appearance can't reduce my excitement: I know this place carries something magical, and I have walked nearly 8,000 miles to see it. Templates are scattered on the wall, and people's hands are outlined against the background of red paint. Although they have faded, they are vivid and impressive, and they are exciting messages from the distant past. My companion Maxim oberth took me to a narrow semi-circular niche, like the back porch of a cathedral. I hung my neck near the ceiling a few feet above my head. A seemingly abstract red line can be seen on the dark gray rock.

Then my eyes focused, and these lines merged into a human figure, an animal with a huge spherical body, thick legs and a small head: a Barbirusa deer, or a pig deer that was once common in these valleys. Oberth noted with appreciation its chiseled features. "Look, there is a line representing the ground," he said. "No tusks, it's female. There is a curly tail at the back.

Locals have known this ghostly Barbirusa for decades, but it was not until geochemist and archaeologist oberth used the technology he invented to determine the age of this painting that its importance became apparent. He found it very old: at least 35,400 years old. This may make it the oldest known example of figurative art and the earliest picture in the world.

This is one of more than a dozen other ancient cave murals in Sulawesi. Now it can be compared with the earliest cave art in Spain and France, and has long been regarded as the oldest species on earth.

When oberth and his colleagues announced this discovery at the end of 20 14, it became the headlines all over the world, and its significance was revolutionary. They smash our most common ideas about the origin of art and force us to accept a richer picture of how and where our species first woke up.

Hidden in a wet cave on the "other side" of the world, this curly-tailed creature is by far the closest connection between us and human thinking. Rock art in Sulawesi was first discovered in 1950s. (Gilbert Gates)

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Who was the first man? Who can see and explain the world like us? Studies on genes and fossils agree that humans evolved in Africa 200,000 years ago. However, although these earliest humans looked like us, it is not clear whether they thought like us.

As early as more than a million years ago, other human species mastered the intellectual breakthroughs in human evolution, such as tool making. What distinguishes us is our ability to think and plan the future, and our ability to remember and learn from the past, which early human cognitive theorists called "higher or"

This complex way of thinking is a huge competitive advantage, which helps us to cooperate, survive in a harsh environment and open up new land. It also opens the door to imagination, spiritual world and a series of intellectual and emotional connections, and injects meaning beyond the basic impulse of survival into our lives. Because it makes symbolic thinking possible, we can make one thing represent another, and it allows people to intuitively express what they can remember and imagine. Benjamin Smith, a rock art scholar at the University of Western Australia, said, "We can't imagine art or its value until we have a higher sense of order." . In this sense, ancient art is a sign of this cognitive change: find early paintings, especially the concrete expressions of animals, and you will find evidence of modern human thinking.

It was not until Ober went to Sulawesi that the oldest ancient art gained a firm foothold in Europe. The spectacular lions and rhinoceroses in the cave of Jowett in southeastern France are usually thought to have a history of 30,000 to 32,000 years, and the ivory statues of mammoths found in Germany roughly correspond to them. Representative pictures or sculptures did not appear in other places until thousands of years later. Therefore, people have always believed that complex abstract thinking appeared in Europe shortly after modern humans arrived in Europe about 40 thousand years ago, which may be caused by a lucky genetic mutation. Once Europeans started painting, their skills and their human genius must have spread all over the world. From 30,000 to 28,000 BC, it was once considered as the oldest place of figurative art, with more than 65,438+0,000 paintings of carnivores such as lions and mammoths, and the complexity was unparalleled. (DRAC· Rhone Alps, photo by Ministry of Culture/Associated Press) Coliboya Cave, Biholu, Romania. Year: In 30000 BC, this cave was often submerged by underground rivers. In 2009, the heads of a bison, a horse, a cat, a bear and a rhinoceros were displayed to cave dwellers. (Andrei Po *** osanu/ Romanian Cave Association) Serra da Capivara, Piauí, Brazil. From 28,000 BC to 6,000 BC, the paintings of jaguar, tapir and red deer (as shown in the picture, about 10000 BC) interacted with human figures in dancing, hunting and other scenes in this national park. (Niède Guidon/Bradshaw Foundation) Kakadu Ubirr, Northern Territory, Australia. Year: In 26000 BC, indigenous painters covered thousands of years of rock bunkers and ships that arrived later with mysterious creatures and animals (such as kangaroos here). (Tom Boden, Lonely Planet Photo Agency/Getty Photo Agency) Apollo Cave in Karas, Namibia 1 1. Date: 25500-23500 BC; Seven "Apollo 1 1" stones discovered shortly after the first landing on the moon were decorated with charcoal and ochre to form the images of cats and cows. (Windhoek Museum, through the African Rock Art Trust) The Rock Shelter in Bim Betka, Madhya Pradesh, India. Year: 65438 BC+03000 BC (in the eastern United States), gathered in five natural rock bunkers, the paintings show the images of large animals, including Indian lions and Gauls (Indian bison), with rod-shaped people next to them. (Universal Pictures Group/Getty Pictures) Cumberland Valley Cave, Tennessee, USA Date: 4000 BC | The art in this Appalachian valley shows the concern of local people in the southeast, from hunting (visible here) to religious portraits. (University of Tennessee, Knoxville, F.Simek/,)

But experts now question this standard view. Archaeologists in South Africa found that this ochre pigment was used in caves 164000 years ago. They also found deliberately perforated shells, which showed that they were strung together like jewels, and a large piece of ochre, one of which was engraved with a zigzag pattern, indicating that this artistic ability existed long before humans left Africa. However, the evidence is depressing and indirect. Maybe ochre is not used for painting, but for repelling mosquitoes. The sculpture may be one-off, without symbolic graffiti at every opportunity he gets. "One day, I visited LeangJarie," he said. LeangJarie means "finger hole" and is named after dozens of templates on its wall. Like Leang Timpuseng, it is covered by white minerals formed by infiltration or dropwise evaporation. These minerals are called "cave popcorn". The whole ceiling is covered with popcorn, and I can see some handprints in the middle. As soon as he got home, he told Oberth to go to Sulawesi.

The following summer, oberth spent a week in Sulawesi by motorcycle. He sampled five paintings partially covered with popcorn, and each time he cut a small square from the rock with a diamond drill, with a diameter of about 1.5 cm and a depth of about several millimeters.

After returning to Australia, he spent several weeks grinding rock samples into thin layers and then separating uranium and thorium from each layer. "You collect powder, then you remove another layer, and then you collect powder," oberth said. "You want to be as close to the paint as possible." Then he drove from Wolong to Canberra, analyzed his samples by mass spectrometer, and slept in the van outside the laboratory, so that he could work as many hours as possible and minimize the time he needed on expensive machines. Unable to get the project funds, he had to pay his own air ticket and analysis fee to Sulawesi. "I'm completely broke," he said.

Oberth's first age calculation refers to the hand template in the cave. "I thought,' Oh, shit,'" he said. "So I calculated it again." Then he called Bloom.

"I didn't understand what he was saying," Bloom recalled. He blurted out, "Thirty-five thousand!" I was stunned. I said, are you sure? I immediately thought it would be a big hole.

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The caves we visited in Sulawesi were amazing. They range from small rock shelters to huge caves inhabited by poisonous spiders and big bats. There is evidence to show how water forms and changes these spaces. The rocks are bubbling, full of vitality, and often shiny wet rocks. It exploded into the shape of a skull, jellyfish, waterfall and chandelier. In addition to the common stalactites and stalagmites, there are columns, curtains, steps and platforms, and popcorn is everywhere. It grows on the ceiling and wall like barnacles.

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We bought the monthly issue of 1-2, and ramli, an archaeologist of Makasa Archaeological Heritage Protection Center. Lamri knows the art of these caves like the back of his hand. 198 1 year, as a student, he first went to a small place called LeangKassi. He said he remembered it clearly, especially when he spent the night in the cave. The local villagers thought he was a headhunter and took him away. Ramli is 55 years old, burly and energetic, wearing a wide-brimmed explorer hat and a T-shirt with the words "Save our heritage" and "Stay calm and visit the museum". He has catalogued more than 120 rock art sites in this area, and set up a gate and guard system to protect caves from destruction and graffiti.

Almost all the signs he showed me, with ochre and charcoal, appeared in relatively exposed areas and were illuminated by the sun. They are obviously formulated by all members of the community. In one place, I climbed a fig tree and entered a small and tall room. The reward is that the outline of a hand is very small and can belong to my 2-year-old son. In another place, hands are arranged in two horizontal rails with fingers pointing to the left. In other parts of Sulawesi, people's hands have slender and pointed fingers, which may be formed by overlapping one template with another; Hand-painted palm prints; Finger bent or missing.

Sulawesi still has the tradition of mixing rice flour and water to make hands. These immigrants can make signposts on strange scenery and print their identity in the New Territories.

However, the earliest concrete art in Sulawesi has thought-provoking similarities with Europe. Animal paintings are meticulous and natural, giving people the impression that Barbirusa's fur and lines are ingenious, or, in Europe, it is the mane of a stallion. According to Tasson, the technical similarity "shows that painting naturalistic animals is part of hunting and gathering practice, not the tradition of any particular culture." In other words, this lifestyle may lead to similar practices. Smith of the University of Western Australia believes that the similarities between using ochre, hand-made plate making and lifelike animals cannot be a coincidence. He believes that these technologies must have appeared before the wave of immigration on the African continent began. This is the same view of many experts. Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University added: "I bet it was in the backpacks of the first colonists. Jean Clottes, a famous French prehistoric scholar, believes that in different groups, including those who eventually settled in Sulawesi, technologies such as templates may have been developed separately. " . As one of the most respected experts in cave art in the world, Claude led the study of caves in Charvet, which helped to spread the concept of "human revolution" in Europe. "If they want to, why don't they make scaffolding?" ? "When I found him at his home in Faouar, France, he asked." People are always reinventing things. "Although he is eager to see other researchers copy Aubert's research results, he feels that what many people suspect from the perforated shells and ochre carvings found in Africa is almost inevitable now: this is far from a late development, and the spark of artistic creativity can be traced back to our earliest ancestors on that continent. He believes that no matter where you find modern people, you will find art in caves called caves in the local area.

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Buckets, wheelbarrows and countless bags of clay form a neat trench, which is five meters long and three meters deep. Adam Bloom is supervising the excavation there to reveal the lifestyle of early artists on the island.

People came to Sulawesi, which is part of the East African migration tide that started about 60,000 years ago. They may have crossed the Red Sea and Peninsula to India, Southeast Asia and Borneo today, when they were part of the mainland. In order to reach Sulawesi, which has always been an island, they need boats or rafts to cross at least 60 miles of ocean. Although no human remains were found in Sulawesi during this period, it is believed that the first inhabitants of Sulawesi were closely related to the first people who colonized Australia about 50,000 years ago. Bloom said, "They may look roughly similar to today's aborigines or Papuans.

Bloom and his team found evidence of fire buildings, fireplaces and precision-made stone tools, which may be used to make hunting weapons. However, although the residents of this cave sometimes hunt large animals, such as wild boar, archaeological remains show that they mainly eat freshwater shellfish and an animal called Kukus, a slow-moving arboreal marsupial with a long and grasping tail cave and a dangerous passage connecting several caves full of art. Bloom said, "This is where artists live." Indonesian archaeologists have explored Leon Blue Bate, also known as the cave. (Justin Mott) In 20 13, archaeologists began to dig this cave. (Justin Mott) They hope to find the earliest traces of human occupation in Maros. An archaeologist separated the soil in search of cultural relics. Members of Bloom's team tripped over cave art. (Justin Mott)

A famous conclusion made by French anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss in 1962 is that primitive people chose to distinguish and represent animals not because they were delicious, but because they were good at thinking. During the ice age, European cave painters, horses, rhinoceroses, mammoths and lions were not as important as dinner, but as important as inspiration. The ancient Sulawesi people seem to be equally moved, describing animals that are bigger, more terrible and more impressive than the animals they often eat.

Now we are looking for older paintings, which may bring us closer to the awakening moment of our species. Oberth is collecting limestone samples from painted caves in other parts of Asia, including Borneo, along the route that immigrants should go to Sulawesi. He and Smith are also independently committed to developing new technologies to study other types of caves, including sandstone sites common in Australia and Africa. Sandstone will not form cave popcorn, but rocks will form a "siliceous skin", which can determine the age. Work with colleagues in many organizations.

Smith is analyzing Kimberly's paintings and sculptures, which is the first result of the arrival of modern humans at least 50 thousand years ago. Smith said, "We hope to see some exciting early dates." . "I'm not surprised if we can get a date much earlier than Europe soon." Scholars are now talking excitedly about the prospect of analyzing African cave murals. "99.9% of rock art is undated," Smith said, citing ochre patterns of crocodiles and hippos found in the Sahara desert, which usually appear on sandstone and granite. He said: "The traditional date is 15000 to 20000 years ago." . "But they have no reason not to be old."

With the backward extension of the origin of art, we will have to revise our usual concept of localization. What prompted this aesthetic expression in the first place? Previously, some people thought that Europe's harsh northern climate needed strong social ties, thus promoting the development of language and art, or that the competition with Neanderthals did not appear in Europe until about 25,000 years ago, which prompted modern humans to express their identity by painting the flags of ancient humans on the cave walls. Smith said, "These arguments disappeared because nothing happened there."

Crotes supports the theory that in Europe, art is hidden in darkness, and the main function of cave painting is to communicate with the spiritual world. Smith also believes that spiritual belief promoted the first art in Africa. He took the rhinoceros cave in Botswana as an example. Archaeologists found that 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, people burned or smashed elaborate spears as sacrifices in front of a large rock panel with hundreds of round holes. Smith said: "We can be sure that in this case, they believe in some kind of spiritual power." They believe that art and art-related rituals can influence these spiritual forces and seek benefits for themselves. They don't just want to take beautiful photos. They do this because they are communicating with the soul of the earth.

In the cave, there are handmade templates and rich traces of paint on the wall. Bloom is now looking for materials of early artists. He said that in the stratum that existed at about the same time as the nearby template, "there is a main peak on the ochre." So far, his team has found stone tools with edges coated with ochre and a scratched ochre block the size of a golf ball. There are also some scattered fragments, which may be spilled by the artist after grinding ochre and mixing it with water. In fact, the whole land was dyed cherry red.

Bloom said that this residential area can be traced back to at least 28,000 years ago, and he is analyzing older strata and using radioactive carbon.