A team of Indonesian and Australian archaeologists discovered a series of cave paintings on the island of Sulawesi. The paintings are nearly 40,000 years old, making them the oldest confirmed cave art outside Europe. CCTV America’s Andy Saputra reports.

It’s a discovery that forces people to rethink the history of mankind. The ancient cave paintings were found in the 1950’s in a cave in Indonesia. Initially, they were thought to be made less than 10,000 years ago.

However, a team of researchers from Australia and Indonesia recently managed to date them. The results and their significance have stunned scientists.

To date the Indonesian paintings, the archaeologists looked at calcium carbonate deposits, known as “cave popcorn”, that formed as mineral-rich water trickled down the cave walls.

The age of cave popcorn that formed on top of the paintings gave the researchers a minimum age for the images, while samples from underneath the cave art gave them maximum ages.