Maros Pangkep: The world's oldest known cave
paintings on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are facing a growing threat from
severe wildfires sweeping across the region, with researchers warning that
intense heat and smoke could accelerate damage to the prehistoric treasures.
Indonesia is currently battling its most
severe forest and land fires since 2015, driven by a severe El Niño weather
pattern that has elevated temperatures and triggered widespread drought across
the archipelago. The ancient rock art, located in the limestone karst caves of
Maros-Pangkep in South Sulawesi, includes artwork that Australian and
Indonesian researchers dated to be at least 51,200 years old. Another cave on
Muna island features stencilled handprints and animal depictions, which earlier
this year were estimated to be over 67,000 years old in research published in
Nature magazine. The newly dated artwork on Muna predates the previously
recorded Maros-Pangkep cave art by approximately 16,600 years and is around
1,100 years older than Neanderthal-attributed hand stencils discovered in
Spain.
Grave concern was expressed that extreme
temperatures from the blazes "could ruin them because it changes the
temperature around the paintings and accelerates the process of
corrosion," one archaeologist was quoted as saying. There is also worry
that soot from the smoke could lead to the paintings becoming "blurred and
difficult to identify." "If we don't do something about this quick,
if there isn't any tactical mitigation efforts for this incident we will lose
one of the most amazing evidence of human history in Maros-Pangkep," the
archaeologist added.
Beyond the threat to cultural heritage, the broader wildfire crisis has blanketed parts of Southeast Asia in thick transboundary haze, degrading air quality and closing schools. Singapore and Kuala Lumpur reportedly ranked within the world's top 10 most polluted major cities late Friday. Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture Sugiono said the country had released an additional 1.235 trillion rupiah (around $68 million) in state aid to tackle the blazes, prioritising health services for affected communities, with roughly 71,000 personnel deployed alongside aerial water-bombing and dry-ice cloud-seeding efforts.
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