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Cave paintings in remote mountains in Borneo have been dated to at least 40,000 years ago – much earlier than first thought – according to a study published in Nature.

These artworks include a painting of what seems to be a local species of wild cattle, which makes it the world’s oldest example of figurative art – that is, an image that looks like the thing it is intended to represent.

New finds from the archaeological site of Jebel Irhoud in Morocco push back the origins of our species by 100,000 years and show that by about 300,000 years ago important changes in our biology and behaviour had taken place across most of Africa. Once again, state-of-the art techniques by Southern Cross University researchers has played a key role in direct dating the human remains.