"130,000-Year-Old Stingray Sand Sculpture: World's Oldest Animal Art?"

Researchers in South Africa have discovered a rock that may be the world's oldest example of humans creating an image of a creature other than themselves, dating back to around 130,000 years ago during the Middle Stone Age. The rock, resembling a stingray, was found on the Cape south coast and exhibits near-perfect symmetry, leading researchers to believe it may have been a sand sculpture or "sand castle" created by ancient hominins. This finding suggests that tracing in sand could have been a possible "stepping stone" in the development of representational paleoart, shedding light on the emergence of ancient art and potentially explaining the sudden appearance of magnificent art in European caves.