Living Worlds
A family around a fire at the mouth of a forested limestone cave at dusk, a red painting of a pig and hand stencils on the rock above.

51,200–20,000 years ago · Sulawesi, at least 51,200 years ago

First Story

Every night, someone tells a story.

The law of First Story

Every night, someone tells a story.

On a cave ceiling in Sulawesi, people painted a wild pig and three small human figures around it. It is at least 51,200 years old, the oldest known scene that tells a story in a picture.

A woman blowing red ochre around her hand on a cave wall to make a hand stencil, a child watching.

A life in First Story · composite, based on the record

A painter, forty

She presses her hand to the rock and blows red ochre around it. The child beside her will remember the shape for the rest of her life.

Meanwhile, in the same age

The deep past

People in sewn furs walking home across a snow-dusted steppe at sunset towards a camp fire, mammoths far off on the plain.

The Long Winter

Beringia, about 20,000 years ago

A double-hulled voyaging canoe with pandanus sails on the open Pacific at dusk.

Which world will you live in?

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