The oldest human drawing was discovered in a cave in South Africa

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Nine red lines on a stone splinter found in a cave in South Africa could be the oldest drawing ever made by Homo sapiens.

The artifact, which scientists believe has a 73,000 year old, precedes the oldest abstract paintings in Europe previously known about 30,000 years ago.

"We know many things that Homo sapiens could do, but not the fact that they were able to make such drawings in this early period," said Christopher Henshilwood, archeologist at the University of Bergen and principal author of study.

The finding, which was published in Nature, can provide insight into the use of symbols by mankind, which laid the foundations for language, mathematics and civilization.

The prehistoric drawing was discovered in the Blombos cave, about 300 km from Cape Town.

Archaeological deposits on this site date from 70,000 to 100,000 years, with the Middle Stone Age period.

Inside the cave, scientists have discovered Homo sapiens teeth, spear tips, bone tools, engravings and shell beads.

Luca Pollarolo, a researcher at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa, cleared some artifacts excavated from the site in 2011 when he came across a small splinter that measures only 3.86 cm in length and 1.28 cm in width, which seemed to be drawn.

The markings represented six straight, almost parallel lines that were diagonally crossed by three slightly curved lines.

"I think so far I have seen more than tens of thousands of artifacts in my life, and I have never seen red lines on a splinter," said Dr. Pollarolo.

"I could not believe what I had in my hands."

He contacted Dr. Henshilwood and Karen van Niekerk, also an archaeologist at the University of Bergen, and agreed that the splinter was worthy of investigation.

They took the artefact in France to be examined by Francesco d'Errico, an archaeologist at the University of Bordeaux.

Here, the team had to determine whether the red lines were drawn on the stone, if they were not, to find out their origin.

Using a microscope, a laser and an electronic scanning microscope, they determined that the markings were placed on the top of the stone and were made of red dew, a type of natural pigment often used in prehistoric paintings in caves.

In fact, the people in the Blombos cave made shame paintings 100,000 years ago.

"Then did we have to determine how these lines were made?" Said Dr. Niekerk.

"Have they been painted or drawn?"

They recreated the painting of shame after they turned a wooden stick into a brush and made lines on stone splinters comparable to those on the specimen.

They have made a model, but this time they made the lines with a deceptive pencil.

Then they compared the markings of the paint and pencils made with those on the artifact.

They established that the transverse prehistoric model was a drawing, not a painting, made with a pencil tip that most likely only measured about 1 to 3 millimeters in thickness.

This distinction between painting and drawing is important, according to Dr. Henshilwood, because paint mixtures can dry out.

Which makes it less useful than the shield that could be used by the prehistoric man whenever he or she wanted to make symbols, without complicating the mixing of the paint.

Dr. Henshilwood and his team showed that the red lines were drawn on a smooth surface.

What indicated that the splinter was once part of a larger stones that prehistoric people would use to crush the shit.

They also showed that the original lines most likely extended beyond the stone chip before it was split.

They can not say with certainty what purpose the drawing was made of, and whether it is a simple marauding or something of greater significance.

But they have their guesses.

"I am convinced that they are more than mere random markings," said Dr. Henshilwood.

"I think it is certainly a symbol and there is a message there."

They also think that the drawing was made by a member of our species and not by another hominin because they only found Homo sapiens remains in the cave.

The oldest examples of abstract and figurative drawing techniques prior to this discovery were those from the Chauvet cave in France, El Castillo cave in Spain, Apollo 11 (en) in southern Namibia and the Maros cave in Indonesia, some of which date back about 42,000 years.

Also, a recent study has uncovered neanderthal paintings made of shame in Europe, which were 64,000 years old.

"Until now, we did not know that the drawing was part of the repertoire of prehistoric Homo sapiens," said Dr. van Niekerk.

The inside of the Blombos fish, where the artifact was first excavated in 2011.

Dr. Henshilwood, said that in this cave were found other similar patterns of crossed and embossed engraved engraved pieces.

An abstract pattern appears to be engraved on this piece of shame, which was also found in the Blombos cave in the same remnants of the stone splinter. (Errico / Henshilwood / Nature)

The most recent thing, he said, has provided additional evidence that early African people used symbols and abstract thinking in a variety of ways, such as drawing, painting, engraving and jewelry making.

"The authors are right that this is the oldest visual designation hitherto made by Homo sapiens," said Paul Pettitt, an archaeologist at Durham University in England, who was not involved in the study.

"The new discovery is crucial to our understanding of the emergence of visual culture as it documents the transfer of such a motive to the stone in an intentional act."

Instead, Dar Lyn Wadley, an archaeologist at Witwatersrand University, said, "He is not convinced that it is a matter of deliberate drawing on chips based on current evidence."

If the drawing was on a piece that once was part of a grinding stone used to make a shame, she would have liked to have seen the researchers perform additional experiments that would replicate other activities than the drawing to demonstrate that the markings ocher were not made unintentionally, while dusting powder.

Dr d'Errico retorted, saying that grinding the powder for the powder would have left large red signs and not thin lines that they see on their artifact.

While the debate remains unresolved, researchers have given the artefact, originally called the CC-L13, a new name, taken from a more modern symbol.

"We call it '# L13' because we are in 2018 and everything has hashtags," said Dr. van Niekerk