[esnible3]

Also discussed on NPR: https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/786760790/44-000-year-old-ind...

The NPR story quotes one of the authors of a paper published today in Nature... but then brings in an unrelated graduate student to say, without evidence, that painting was invented somewhere other than Southeast Asia: "Personally, I think ... Africa."

[SantalBlush]

And in the very next paragraph, the author of the paper agrees with the opinion.

"While not everyone in the field agrees, and no figurative cave art in Africa has been dated older than the Indonesian works, Brumm says he has the same gut feeling."

[barrkel]

To be clear, there's a logic behind this: the experts are looking at similarities between figurative art in Europe and Asia and hypothesizing a common ancestor rather than coincidence.

[wrnr]

Thats a fun theory, but how is that different than all the pyramids found around the word. I mean, it's sort of is the "easiest" big structure one can build.

[koboll]

Surely the paintings that survived for 44,000 years aren't the only ones that were painted that early. There's no particular reason that art couldn't be older -- much older, even -- but not be able to survive for much longer than that.

[SantalBlush]

I know nothing about this field, but could differences in climate or geology explain why they haven't found these types of paintings in Africa?