4000-year-old painted plaque from Southeast Indonesia reveals Austronesian Painting Tradition preceded Neolithic pottery

The Austronesian dispersal is the largest such event in human history, with descendantsof people from Taiwan colonizing islands from Rapa Nui to Madagascar. The extent towhich this dispersal was facilitated by an economic package or a particular ideology isuncertain. The “Austronesian Painting Tradition” (APT) is a distinctive rock art styledominated by paintings of small human figures, boats, and geometric motifs found ineastern Wallacea and islands around New Guinea. The age of the APT is thus far poorlyconstrained, with uncertainty over whether it appeared endogenously through earlierHolocene interisland networks, if it arrived with the earliest Austronesian migrants,or if it appeared during the intensified interisland contact of the Indonesian MetalAge beginning ~2,500 y ago. Here we report the recovery of a painted stone plaqueexcavated in situ from archaeological excavation on Wetar Island, Maluku. The plaqueoccurs in a transitional layer between Paleolithic and Neolithic occupation. It bears aclassic “Austronesian” red concentric circle and sun- ray motif and is dated to between4090 and 3900 cal. BP, significantly earlier than the first pottery at the site and in thisregion. The early date for this plaque in a preceramic layer and its location in southeastMaluku supports the view that the APT had an early origin, and that the Austronesiandiaspora was either propelled by or leveraged a compelling symbolic ideology.