This hand stencil appears to have been modified to appear more claw-like Ahdi Agus Oktaviana A nearly 68,000-year-old hand stencil found on the wall of a cave in Sulawesi, Indonesia, may be the oldest rock art ever discovered – and rather than a simple handprint, it appears to have been touched up by the artist, possibly to make the fingers look claw-like. In recent decades it has become apparent that Sulawesi is a key location in the human story – home to numerous species of hominins from as long ago as 1.4 million years when an early human species, likely Homo erectus, made the first known sea voyages. In 2024, Maxime Aubert at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia, and his colleagues reported that they had found the world’s oldest known “representational” art on the island – a pig depicted alongside human-like figures, that was at least 51,200 years old. Now, his team have announced the discovery of a further 44 rock art sites in south-eastern Sulawesi, and dated one partial hand stencil at a site …