Prehistoric Indonesian cave paintings may rewrite art history. A new study found that cave paintings found in Indonesia are as old, and in some cases even older, than ancient art that originated in Europe. According to a new study published y in the journal Nature, archaeologists have found what is now the considered to be the oldest hand stencil known to science.

Archaeologists found cave art on Sulawesi Island, between Southeast Asia and Northern Australia, that show humans were drawing in different parts of the world that rivals Western European cave art in age. The Indonesian handprints have been approximated to be at least 39,900 years old.  

In 2011, while studying over 100 Indonesian cave drawings that were uncovered around 1950, scientists Maxime Aubert of Griffith University in Queensland and other researchers at the Leang Timpuseng cave site noticed outcroppings on the drawings caused by mineral deposits. The scientists call these anomalies "cave popcorn." Using uranium decay dating, the scientists were able to test the mineral deposits to determine the age. Cave popcorn testing showed that the stencils had a minimum age near of 39,900 years.

"Whoa, it was not expected," archaeologist and geochemist at Griffith University in Australia Maxime Aubert, the lead writer of the Nature article told Fox News in a telephone interview.

Writing in the journal Nature, the report found "It is possible that rock art emerged independently around the same time and at roughly both ends of the spatial distribution of early modern humans [60,000 or more years ago]."

It is possible "that cave painting was widely practiced by the first homo sapiens to leave Africa tens of thousands of years earlier."

Art is one of the evolutionary factors that distinguish humans from animals. BBC Science correspondent Pallab Ghosh reported that this art discovery marks "a beginning of a surge in the development of human intelligence... an ability to think in abstract terms."

Aubert told Fox News the animal drawings are "really, really well-made. Then when you look at it in context that it's really 40,000 years old, it's amazing."