Cave art, art and geometric morphometrics: Shape changes and the babirusa of Sulawesi

Abstract

There is considerable evidence that the babirusa of Sulawesi and its neighbouring islands has long attracted human attention. This is probably in part due to the male babirusa appearing as a bizarre compound of two familiar ungulates (babi = ‘pig’, rusa = ‘deer’) in that the male’s upper canines resemble deer antlers. In October 2014, Aubert et al. announced in Nature that a cave art depiction in Leang Timpuseng, Maros, interpreted by the authors to depict a female babirusa, was created at least 35,400 years ago and is therefore of comparable antiquity to the oldest recorded Late Pleistocene cave art of Europe. Using geometric morphometrics, we compare the Leang Timpuseng cave art to profile photographs and illustrations depicting the babirusa and the endemic Sulawesi warty pig, including historical illustrations produced by Europeans during the period ~AD 1740–1860. Our analysis indicates that geometric morphometrics can be applied to meaningfully analyse naturalistic cave art.