Preserved Handprints Track Human Movements Thousands of Years Ago

[Buster's Uncle]

Preserved Handprints Track Human Movements Thousands of Years Ago
Declan Gallagher
Men's Journal
Updated Fri, August 15, 2025 at 11:10 AM EDT
2 min read



Photo courtesy of GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation / The Conversation


An international team of archaeologists working in Australia’s GunaiKurnai Country has discovered ancient handprints which track the movement of people thousands of years ago, according to a study published in the journal Australian Archaeology.

A team of archaeologists from the GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation, working with researchers from Monash University and other archaeologists from Spain, France, and New Zealand, discovered the handprints on the malleable walls of a cave known locally as Waribruk. The cave is deeply recessed, and those who inhabited the land tens of thousands of years ago would have required either a torch or a small campfire to navigate the tunnels. Over time, the cave’s interior walls became softer as water seeped underground through the limestone. The texture of the walls is now similar to clay. Nearby the handprints, scientists found ash from fires and small pieces of coal, which they believe were embers from torches. These date back to between 8,400 and 1,800 years ago, hundreds of generations past.

Scientists believe the handprints were made by people using their hands to map and navigate the curves of the dark cave. One particular wall has a set of 96 curved markings which indicate movement through the cavern. The patterns run horizontally and were made by various pairs of hands, some of them working simultaneously side by side. Later, grooves running the opposite way were added to the wall. Some of the markings appear to have been made by a child’s hand, though due to their height, it’s likely that someone was holding them up at the time.

Due to the relatively small number of handprints (950 in total) and the lack of any artifacts such as bones, food, or anything else that points to daily living, scientists determined that a select group of individuals used the cave. Namely, it was traversed by ancient medicine men and women, who used it as part of their healing rituals. “The finger grooves at Waribruk [match] these traditions,” the study’s authors wrote in Ancient Origins. “They are not casual decorations. They are deliberate gestures, linked to crystal-coated surfaces, made in places only a few could enter.”

Preserved Handprints Track Human Movements Thousands of Years Ago first appeared on Men's Journal on Aug 12, 2025