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Updated September 23rd, 2021 at 18:30 IST

Fossilised handprints of ice age kids found in Tibetan plateau might be world's oldest art

The study estimated the age of one pre-historic kid to be equal to a modern-day seven-year-old while another being a 12-year-old

Reported by: Harsh Vardhan
fossilised handprints
IMAGE: TWITTER/@ARTISTMICHAELM | Image:self
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The Tibetan plateau is now being touted as a region having evidence of the earliest human settlements after handprints of ice age children have come into the limelight. According to a report by Live Science, the impressions first made in sticky mud and now preserved on limestone could be the oldest art of pre-historic humans in the Quesang region of the Tibetan plateau. Reportedly, the impressions date back to the ice age that occurred 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago. 

Children must have aged between 7-12, said experts

Published in the journal Science Bulletin, authors of the study estimated the age of one pre-historic kid to be equal to a modern-day seven-year-old while another being a 12-year-old. The authors arrived at this conclusion by assessing the amount of uranium left in the samples of the impressions. As per Live Science’s report, the scientists analysed the rate of uranium decay in the impressions and estimated their origin to be almost in the mid-ice age, which was around 169,000 to 226,000 years ago. Still, the species of the children that made the impressions are still unknown. 

In an interview with Live Science, the study’s co-author Matthew Bennett raised a possibility of the children belonging to Denosovians and even Homo Erectus, who largely inhabited the area. However, he still emphasised that they are clueless about the species. 

First discovered by a Chinese professor

A Chinese professor at Guangzhou University had first discovered five foot and handprints each while on an expedition to a hot spring at 13,100 feet above the sea level in Tibet’s Quesang. The report by Live Science stated that the region has produced the earliest evidence of archaic humans and hominins’ settlement. Emmanuelle Honoré, a researcher from Belgium’s Université Libre de Bruxelles had revealed about a Denisovan jawbone recently being unearthed from the Baishiya Cave in northern Tibetan plateau that overlaps the timeline of the Quesang settlement. However, it was further revealed that the Quesang was located many miles away from the Baishiya cave and the latter was only 10,500 feet above sea level. The experts suggested that the handprints were likely of the Denosovians and the oldest settlement evidence in the elevated central region. 

Handprints to become parietal art

Authors of the study have stated that the impressions should qualify as parietal art and if they do, this would be the oldest inclusion in this genre, said media sources. Parietal arts are basically those which cannot be moved like cave paintings and petroglyphs. According to Live Science, the oldest known parietal arts are hand motifs and hand stencils in Indonesia and Spain respectively that are between 40,000-45,000 years old. 

(IMAGE: TWITTER/ @ARTISTMICHAELM)

 

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Published September 23rd, 2021 at 18:29 IST

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