The Candle Burning at Both Ends: How Climate Change is Rubbing Salt in the Wounds of the Past

It is safe to say that the effects of climate change are threatening our future. Sea waters rising, extended droughts and a myriad of other concerns seem to shadow the future more and more as we envision it. But the effects of human caused climate change may not just be distorting our future but also our past. 

Leang Sakapao Cave Hand Stencils. Image: Linda Siagian

Typically, the oldest rock art was thought to have come from Europe. Scenes of people hunting mammoth scrawled on cave walls usually jumps to mind, but the world's oldest rock art is much closer to home (should you be Australian like myself). For example, cave paintings in Sulawesi and Borneo date back to a whopping 52,000 to 40,000 years ago at least. These incredible sites, and many others like them, not only hold cultural significance to local communities but also offer an enormous wealth of knowledge to modern archaeologists and scientists globally. Through studying sites like these, parts of the answer to that question of "Who are we?" can become clearer. They are invaluable and of course, irreplaceable.

Rock art sites: Maros-Pangkep, Sulawesi (Indonesia)  

So here comes the bad news. 

A study published by Huntley et al. 2021, for Nature, reveals that these sites are rapidly deteriorating because of human caused climate change. It focuses on 11 sites in the Maros-Pangkep region of southern Sulawesi, which date between 20,000 to 40,000 years old. Specifically, the research focuses on how climate change is damaging these sites. Using techniques involving chemical analysis and crystal identification, flakes from the paintings were processed and it was discovered that salts growing on and behind the rock art is the cause of this deterioration. These salt crystals expand and retract during changes in temperatures and cause the rock art to "exfoliate". Though this is a natural occurrence, greenhouse gases are causing greater climate extremes, further exacerbating this effect. Worse still, the monsoon rains falling in ever expanding rice paddies are creating higher levels of humidity which makes a perfect environment to create more salt crystals.

Exfoliation of cave surface (pale areas) Leang Tedongnge rock shelter. Image: Basran Burhan

SO HOW HAS THE MEDIA RESPONDED?

An article from the Conversation does an excellent job of covering this study. It cuts out a lot of the science jargon and instead focussed on three main points:

•          The importance of Australasia’s rock art
•          The formation, expansion and retraction of salt crystals
•          The threat of climate change in an archaeological sense

The article is well written, explaining only the basics for a more casual reader, while maintaining a narrative of relevant information and highlighting why the study is both important and alarming. The article includes a small video further highlighting the key points of the study.

Dr. Jillian Huntley explains her findings. 

An article written for Advanced Science News cites the study and offers an insight to not just the Sulawesi sites facing threats from climate change but other culturally significant sites around the world. This is an encouraging piece describing the impacts of climate change on "cultural assets" and how these assets can generate awareness in contemporary sustainability agendas. 

Sulawesi Cave. Image: A. A. Octaviana

Another article written by Kiona Smith for ars Technica gives us a lovely breakdown of the situation. She explains the process of how climate change is affecting the Sulawesi sites and what can be done to record and preserve the ancient paintings. The narrative of this piece is optimistic and a great read, concise and not too overbearing with "technical talk". And I especially loved her stellar use of the subheading “It’s worth getting salty over”.  

The Oman Observer wrote a short, direct piece highlighting the issue. It includes interviews with Basran Burhan, who worked on the study and Rustan Labe from the Ministry of Education and Culture's Cultural Heritage Conservation Centre. Though the issues are stated, this article does not explore what can be done to prevent further damage to the site.

Social media have picked up the study with X citing the study 119 times alone.

An example of “trimming too much fat” can be seen by this article written for Yahoo News. This article vaguely explains the issue of climate change effecting the sites in Sulawesi but doesn’t offer a whole lot more than that. It briefly quotes Basran Burhan and in one line mentions the wiping out of these paintings would be a great loss to history and culture without providing anymore detail.   

 ON THE WHOLE: HITS AND MISSES

The Conversation, Advance Science News and ars Technica pieces all effectively reported the issue. Each gave a breakdown of how climate change was affecting the site, how researchers were responding and most importantly, why preservation of this site (and others like it) are important. Though the idea of climate change can be scary, all three pieces managed to convey an optimistic point of view. These examples are typical of well respected science media communications. Though the Oman Observer and Yahoo articles did not fully explore the implications of the Sulawesi site degradation nor give any scientific reasons of why this is happening, their articles do bring the issue of climate change to the public. The more attention brought to climate concerns is obviously a good thing. Over all, the worlds media have reported on this subject well. Highlighting climate change as not just a destructive force to the environment but to our history as well.   

Bibliography:

Corless, V. (2021, June 1) How can we leverage heritage in a changing global climate? Advanced Science News. < https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/how-can-we-leverage-heritage-in-a-changing-global-climate/>.

Huntley, J, A. Brumm, A. Octaviana, B. Burhan, M. Aubert. (2021, May 14) How climate change is erasing the world’s oldest rock art. The Conversation. < https://theconversation.com/how-climate-change-is-erasing-the-worlds-oldest-rock-art-159929>.

Huntley. J, M. Aubert, A. A. Octaviana, R. Lebe, B. Hakim, B. Burhan, L. Muhammad Aksa, I. Made Geria, M. Ramli, L. Siagian, H. E. A. Brand and A. Brumm 2021 The effects of climate change on the Pleistocene rock art of Sulawesi. Nature 11:9833.

Oman Observer 2021: World/Asia: Salt erosion decays world’s oldest cave painting. Retrieved 1 April 2025 from < https://www.omanobserver.om/article/1102149/world/asia/salt-erosion-decays-worlds-oldest-cave-painting>.

Smith, K. N. (2021, May 19) Climate change is erasing humanity’s oldest art. Ars Technica. < https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/climate-change-is-erasing-humanitys-oldest-art/>.

Yahoo News 2021: Salt erosion decaying world’s oldest cave painting. Retrieved 12 April 2025 from < https://uk.news.yahoo.com/salt-erosion-decaying-worlds-oldest-075411058.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uYXR1cmUuYWx0bWV0cmljLmNvbS9kZXRhaWxzLzEwNTgxODAyNy9uZXdz&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEAMHstbxOsgKJ-vGAAVYzHic3nUoceJ9bvOYCTr04u5ZCgbPEfKk6njYfm7W3fR9R3S7Acc7Uo7lU0jBmHEHY6ilbGyFzeHczvNiYI4N_puMYPJs6RD9s2o0KcJF6YyuSfo-0xTLlKKrrzY4A28lpgP1RGN_A7Yf_-rLMKlloAb>.