Anthropologists may have found the early man's oldest art in Indonesia following the recent discovery of engravings on a fossilized mollusc shell believed to be 540,000 years old, cites an AFP report published on MSN News.
"Researchers in Java, Indonesia discovered engravings on a shell that dates back to between 540,000 and 430,000 years ago. They added that the ancient artwork could be the oldest known geometric carvings made by a human ancestor," reports Fox News.
More than the artwork, the discovery also indicates that the ancestors of early humans were actually more intelligent than previous studies suggested.
The Inquisitr discloses that it was Dutch palaeontologist Eugene Dubois who discovered the shells in the banks of Bengawan Solo River in East Java, Indonesia during an excavation of the site called Trinil in 1891.
Smithsonian.com details that Dubois unearthed a major fossil find during the excavation to the site, which eventually became known as the home of the "Java Man," better known today as "Homo erectus" amid controversy.
Aside from bones of what appeared to be an ancient human, Dubois also discovered animal remains and shells on the site. He was able to collect 11 species of freshwater shells called Trinil, adds the report.
Fox News says the discovery also points to the fact that the early ancestors of today's humans not only had freshwater shellfish for food but also engraved their shells and used them as tools.
The zigzag scratchings on the shell was discovered after scientists made a thorough scrutiny of some 166 freshwater mussell shells that were previously discovered in the site, notes AFP.
But it was not yet clear what the series of slashes and M-shaped zigzag carvings means, according to scientists.
Jordan Joordens, marine biologist and archaeologist, and Stephen Munro, an archaeologist, led the study along with other scientists, which was later on published in the science journal Nature, reports AFP.
"We as humans tend to be a bit species-centric. We think we are so great and they (Home erectus) must have been a bit more stupid than us, but I'm not sure. We need to appreciate the capabilities of our ancestors a bit more," says Joordens, who is a post-Doctorial researcher of archaeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Joordens was obviously referring to the special skills needed to make those engravings on the mollusc shell.
"You had to use a lot of strength in your hands. You had to be precise to make those angles. But if you engrave that dark surface and the white appears, that must have been quite striking for Homo erectus," she opined, as quoted by AFP.