How long have humans and their related ancestral species created art? It is entirely impossible to know for sure, as many mediums may have not survived millennia and it is difficult to say what a person living during the Paleolithic era would have considered art. The earliest forms of art identified by archaeologists come from paintings in caves, most famously the Lascaux Caves in southwest France. Cave art is prevalent throughout France and Spain; however, recent research has identified even older examples in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Last week, a paper in Nature describe the oldest known cave art that was crafted at least 35,000 years ago in the East Kalimantan mountains of Borneo, Indonesia. The inside of the cave is said to be entirely covered in art, including animals and outlines of human hands. Of course, one of the animals that was painted onto the walls of Lubang Jeriji Saléh was indeed, a goat. As new dating methods emerge, archaeologists theorize that some cave art in Europe may be as old as 65,000 years, which means they were created by Neanderthals rather than modern humans. At any rate, the new discoveries from Borneo show that goats have always been part of the story of humans, even before their estimated date of domestication approximately 10,000 years ago.

An image of a goat on the wall of the Lubang Jeriji Saléh Cave, painted 35,00 years ago.