Maros-Pangkep, Sulawesi: the karst that holds the world's oldest dated cave art
Why in news: Wildfires burned over 270 hectares of Bantimurung Bulusaraung National Park between 30 September and 18 October 2026, a firefighter said.
Maros-Pangkep is a tower-karst landscape in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, whose limestone caves hold the oldest dated figurative and narrative cave art known, painted at least 51,200 years ago. Its hills and caves form a national park and a geopark recognised by UNESCO in 2023. In October 2026, Indonesia's worst wildfires since 2015 reached the park.
Syllabus: GS1 · Art & Culture; Prelims · Current Affairs & IR; Prelims · Geography
Why this matters for UPSC
GS1 geography and culture: Prelims asks a place's island and province, a UNESCO Global Geopark against a World Heritage Site, and how uranium-series dating gives a minimum age; Mains can compare Maros-Pangkep with Bhimbetka.
In short
Maros-Pangkep is a limestone tower-karst landscape in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, whose caves hold the oldest dated figurative and narrative paintings known, inside a national park and UNESCO Global Geopark.
Maros-Pangkep's paintings are irreplaceable records of early storytelling; Indonesia must fireproof the painted caves and finish their World Heritage nomination.
Why it matters
These caves show that people told stories in pictures more than 51,000 years ago, long before such scenes became common in the cave art of Ice Age Europe. That changes what students, museums and textbooks say about where art began and who made it. The paintings sit on a thin skin of rock that flakes with heat and darkens with smoke, and once lost they cannot be repainted or dated again. The same hills store water for hundreds of thousands of people living around them, per Indonesia's nomination, so a fire in the karst hurts villages as well as science. The larger question is how any country, India included, guards fragile heritage when long dry spells leave the forest around it ready to burn.
Prelims pointers
- Sulawesi: Indonesian island in Wallacea, the belt of oceanic islands between Asia and Australia-New Guinea; Maros-Pangkep is in South Sulawesi province.
- UNESCO's three site designations: World Heritage sites, biosphere reserves and UNESCO Global Geoparks; a geopark is designated for four years, then revalidated.
- Tentative List: each State Party's inventory of sites it intends to nominate for the World Heritage List; listing is not inscription.
- Uranium-series method: dates calcium carbonate deposits, so it suits rock art in limestone caves, as in Sulawesi, Borneo and Spain.
- Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka: Madhya Pradesh, foothills of the Vindhyan Mountains; five clusters of sandstone shelters; World Heritage Site since 2003, criteria (iii) and (v).
- Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis): endemic to Sulawesi and the animal most often painted in the island's Ice Age rock art.
- Bantimurung waterfall, in Bantimurung Bulusaraung National Park, has been a conservation area since 1919 and was made famous by Alfred Russel Wallace.
Practise a UPSC-style question
With reference to the Maros Pangkep UNESCO Global Geopark, consider the following statements:
1. It lies in the Southeast Sulawesi province of Indonesia.
2. Sulawesi, the island on which it lies, is part of Wallacea.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Show the answer
Answer: (b) 2 only
Answer: (b) 2 only. The geopark is in South Sulawesi, an island of Wallacea.
Statement 1: incorrect. The geopark covers the Maros and Pangkep regencies of South Sulawesi province; Southeast Sulawesi is where Muna Island lies.
Statement 2: correct. Sulawesi lies in Wallacea, the zone of oceanic islands between Asia and Australia-New Guinea that early humans crossed to reach Australia.
Eliminate: Statement 1 is the surer one, since the geopark's regencies are in South Sulawesi. Out: (a), (c).
Eliminate: Statement 2 is correct, Sulawesi being a Wallacean island. Out: (d).
Trap: Look-alike names. South Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi are different provinces, and the oldest hand stencil sits in the second.
Remember: Maros-Pangkep is in South Sulawesi, an island of Wallacea; Muna Island is in Southeast Sulawesi.
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