The beginning of it all soothes us now

In January, archaeologists discovered the world’s oldest cave art in Indonesia, dated at 67,800 years old. Incredible hand prints that have been altered to show pointed fingertips, and a human figure alongside a bird. Speaking on the adaptations to the hand prints, researcher and archaeologist Adam Brumm said, “Clearly, they had some deeper cultural meaning, but we don’t know what that was. I suspect it was something to do with these ancient peoples’ complex symbolic relationship with the animal world”.  

In 2026, as conservationists, and people generally concerned with the state of Planet Earth’s biospheres and biodiversity, and our disenfranchisement from living in the animal world, we find reading about cave art discoveries totally transporting and pretty soothing. In the Muna cave on Sulawesi, some of the art on the caves has been dated as being painted 35,000 years later than the recently discovered oldest paintings in the world, and those are still 32,800 years ago from today! It’s hard for us to comprehend the vast tranches of time between us and those first artists, but even just dipping into that world in our imaginations for a second is mindblowing.