Cave art in Indonesia is dwindling at a dangerous rate due to climate change. What is extremely devastating is that of the many pieces of art carved in rock by the ancient civilizations, one is a picture of a wild pig drawn 45,500 years ago on the island of Sulawesi – said to be the world’s oldest animal cave painting. Painted using dark red ochre pigment, the life-sized picture of the Sulawesi warty pig appears to be part of a narrative scene. The picture was found in the Leang Tedongnge cave in a remote valley on the island of Sulawesi. However, this souvenir from history finds itself on the brink of dissolution as climate change leads to an unfavorable rise in temperature in these caves. What Happened: In a study published in Scientific Reports, a team of Australian and Indonesian researchers found that rising temperatures and other drastic changes in weather cycles, such as consecutive dry spells and heavy monsoons, have led to a copious accumulation of salts within the cave systems housing the rock art. The build-ups of salts expand and shrink as the environment heats up and cools down. On hot days, geological salts can grow to more than three times their initial size, the team wrote. These salt crystals, invading the top and behind of the rock art, result in snippets of pictures and art flaking off from the rock surface, before they are eventually erased completely. What Next: The life-sized picture of the Sulawesi warty pig is the earliest evidence of human settlement of the region. Preserving this historical piece of art is of paramount importance as according to the aforementioned report, the degradation of rock is only expected to accelerate as temperature discrepancies in the region worsen, and salt crystals further penetrate rock layers to demolish the art pieces from within.
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