To me, the most fascinating aspect of our research is that humanity's oldest cave art is at least 44,000 years old and it already has all the key components relating to modern cognition, [ like ] hand stencils, figurative art, storytelling, therianthropes and religious thinking, so it must have a much older origin, possibly in Africa or soon after we left Africa.

Maxime Aubert

It is from this area that Stone Age humans departed by boat to cross Island South Asia to reach the mainland of Papua and Australia( the first successful major maritime voyage), stone Age humans were Stone Age humans, and now we know( Stone Age humans) had advanced medical knowledge.

It's significant because it considerably pushes back our species' knowledge about surgery and complex medicine.

There are at least 242 known cave art sites in this area of Sulawesi and probably hundreds more awaiting discovery in this one part of the island alone, the rest of this enormous island, the world's 11th largest, has barely been explored at all for cave art, so who knows what else is out there. The same goes for the rest of Indonesia -- it is likely there are many more ancient art sites hidden away there.