This is Origin Stories, the Leaky Foundation podcast. I'm Meredith Johnson.

Before we get to the story, I want to thank all of you for supporting the show. We're a donor-supported nonprofit, and every donation makes a difference.

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Now here's our story.

One day, more than 50,000 years ago, on what's now the Indonesian island of Sulawesi,

someone climbed a towering rock formation to paint a picture on the ceiling of a cave almost 500 feet off the ground.

A picture that tells a story.

Using a purplish-red mineral pigment, they painted mysterious human figures and a wild pig.

The figures could be hunting this pig or they could be doing some sort of ritual.

The meaning is lost through time, but it's clear that this picture has meaning, and action, and a story.

This painting is now the oldest known example of visual storytelling in the world,

and it's older than the figurative cave paintings of France and Spain. It gives us a window

into the world and the minds of our ancient ancestors. The discovery was just published in the

journal Nature this July, and today on the show, we'll hear the story of these mysterious images,

where they were found, how scientists did the tricky work of dating

them, and what this art might tell us about human evolution, human imagination, and culture.

...