Photo-stitched panorama of the rock art panel (with photographs enhanced using DStretch_ac_lds_cb). (Credit: Nature/Griffith University)

QUEENSLAND, Australia — The tale of early humans hunting pigs roughly 50,000 years ago may be the first recorded story in human history. Deep in the limestone caves of Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, this remarkable cave painting discovery has pushed back the origins of narrative art by thousands of years.

Researchers in Australia have found that our ancestors were creating complex scenes of human-animal interaction at least 51,200 years ago – making this the oldest known example of visual storytelling in the world. The groundbreaking study focuses on two cave sites in the Maros-Pangkep region of…