Researchers have discovered the world's oldest cave painting on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The painting is a red outline of a hand with reworked fingers that form a claw-like design. The art was spray-painted by pressing a hand to the wall and blowing pigment around it. It dates back at least 67,800 years, making it older than the previous record in Spain by around 1,100 years. This find suggests early Homo sapiens had complex symbolic thinking far earlier than believed and were spread across the Australia-New Guinea landmass known as Sahul. Professor Adam Brumm of Griffiths University said, "When I went to university in the mid to late 90s, that's what we were taught – the creative explosion in humans occurred in a small part of Europe. But now we're seeing traits of modern human behaviour, including narrative art in Indonesia, which makes that Eurocentric argument very hard to sustain." This clawed hand motif shows early human creativity beyond a simple stencil. The cave, Liang Metanduno on Muna Island near Sulawesi, has paintings stretching from 67,800 years ago to about 20,000 years ago, highlighting long-term artistic activity. The discovery also hints that humans likely reached Australia earlier than the traditionally accepted 50,000 years. Adhi Agus Oktaviana from Indonesia's national research agency said, "It is very likely that the people who made these paintings in Sulawesi were part of the broader population that would later spread through the region and ultimately reach Australia." This challenges earlier ideas that art and symbolic thought suddenly emerged in Ice Age Europe. Instead, creativity was an innate human trait with roots stretching back to Africa and spreading widely across Asia and beyond.