Excavations of pre-pottery levels at Gua Talimbue and Gua Sambagowala in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, have yielded nearly 4kg of baked-clay fragments, half of which exhibit intentional patterning. The fragments appear to derive from clay hearths. Here, the authors link the patterning on Early Holocene (c. 9900–8800 cal BP) fragments with the intention to enhance the appearance of the hearths’ rims. During the Mid/Late Holocene (c. 4500–2000 cal BP), patterning shifts to the interior surfaces. The effort and specialised skills required to impress patterns on these hearths is, to date, unique in the archaeology of pre-Neolithic Island Southeast Asia.

Presented here is the so far unique discovery and interpretation of an occupation area directly associated with Upper Palaeolithic cave paintings. The paintings, of red spots and hand stencils, overlook two hearths with selected flints. There were also fragments of stalactite, deduced by analysis and experiment to be waste products from the manufacture of beads. The authors deduce that the hearths and their assemblage complement the ritual nature of the paintings.

Analysis and dating of new Upper Palaeolithic sites suggest that microblades emerged in the Transbaikal after 18,000 years ago. These findings encourage review of earlier assertions that such technologies developed in northeast Asia prior to the last glacial maximum.