The global implications of the early surviving rock art of greater Southeast Asia

The rock art of Southeast Asia has been less thoroughly studied than that of Europe or Australia, and it has generally been considered to be more recent in origin. New dating evidence from Mainland and Island Southeast Asia, however, demonstrates that the earliest motifs (hand stencils and naturalistic animals) are of late Pleistocene age and as early as those of Europe. The similar form of the earliest painted motifs in Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia suggests that they are the product of a shared underlying behaviour, but the difference in context (rockshelters) indicates that experiences in deep caves cannot have been their inspiration. Keywords: rock art, hand stencils, painted caves, rockshelters, animal motifs, uranium-series dating
Introduction The oldest surviving rock art of Europe, northern and southern Africa, India and Australia includes naturalistic depictions of key species of animal that would have been economically and symbolically [...]