SULAWESI TO THE RESCUE (October 9, 2014)
Cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia, has been known for some time, but it has recently been established that it goes back many more thousands of years than has previously been thought. Recent research has shown that the cave paintings and handprints from Indonesia are some forty-thousand years old. There is a great deal written about it as of late, but the main thrust of many articles on Sulawesi is that it challenges the view that cave art is somehow special to Europe. Also, the Indonesian find suggests that cave art ultimately comes from Africa. But there could not have been any doubt about this connection, anyhow. Most of the articles are of interest only as so many pointers to cultural biases of all sorts. And there are many of those across the globe. Even a cursory look at the cave art from Sulawesi shows many common features with cave art elsewhere, including Europe. Humans who left Africa about fifty-thousand years ago were birds of a feather. Some went west and some east, and that is all there is to it. The only puzzle in the current frenzy is how many more times will the same point have to be made before it takes hold.