In Indonesia found 44000-year-old image of the "hunter-werewolves"

An international team of researchers in the study of caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi have discovered the world's oldest paintings depicting mythical creatures on the hunt.

A study published in the journal Nature, and briefly about it tells Live Science. The ancient author depicted a hunting scene, with particular attention hunters. They are depicted as half human-half-animal. Scientists call them hunters-werewolves - therianthrope.

Therianthropy is the mythological ability to turn into something else, such as in plant or animal. According to scientists, this group of therianthropes depicted on the wall of the cave Leang-Boulou-Sepang.

Eight hunters, werewolves, armed with sticks and ropes, in pursuit of two warthogs and four dwarf Buffalo. The latter are extremely dangerous animals. Being trapped, the Buffalo turn around and attack people for whom hunting is, at times, ends a natural death.

The picture covers an area of about 4.5 meters. The study showed that the artist or artists used a dark red pigment. For Dating had to use a special technique.

The researchers analyzed the levels of uranium and other radioactive isotopes in the mineral deposits known as "cave popcorn." They were formed and grew in cave paintings from the time of their creation. It helped to establish that the age of the drawings is at least 43900 years.

It is not just the most ancient image of the hunting of those that are known to science. The authors believe that it is also the most ancient evidence of the human ability to conceive of supernatural beings.

Until now, the oldest known dated specimen rock fine art was a red disk from the cave of El Castillo in Spain, the age of which is about 40800 years. As for therianthropes, it is still the oldest known image of such creatures was a carved figurine of a man with a cat's head age about 40 thousand years old, found in Germany.

"In Europe, scientists have long been interested in the most ancient images of therianthropes in prehistoric art, says study co-author Adam Brumm from Griffith University in Brisbane. - As a rule, they represent the earliest evidence of our ability to represent in the imagination of abstract entities that are not in the natural world."

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»