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The calibrated dating of petroglyphs
... The term Rock Art comprises the full range of paintings (pictographs), engravings (petroglyphs or pictograms) and drawings of images, both naturalistic and non-representational, onto a natural rock surface, including scrawls, cupules and lines. It has been produced intermittently by huntergatherers over a period of more than 77,000 years ( Clottes, 2002;Henshilwood, d'Errico and Watts, 2009) and even as much as 200,000 years ( Bednarik, 1993Bednarik, , 1996). If scrawls, cupules and patterns of engraved lines are not included in the definition of 'art' on the assumption that they were not made as visual symbols of ideas, representational rock art is much younger, with the oldest dated examples less than 40,000 years old. ...
... Some rock art in the Indian subcontinent (there are more than 5,000 recorded sites) is thought to be of Upper Palaeolithic age in the range of c.25,000-15,000 or 12,000 BP ( Chen, 2001;Chakraverty, 2004). In the most detailed regional study at the World Heritage Site, Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka (India), about 35% of the total rock painting motifs in 1700 shelters within a 9 km radius are assigned to the 'Prehistoric Period' ( Chakraverty, 2004), although cup marks and a meandering line at Auditorium Cave are thought to date to the Acheulian about 200,000 years ago ( Bednarik, 1993Bednarik, , 1996). This extremely early occurrence has led to a general view that the earliest HEADS Scientific Working Group ...
... One of the most striking features that distinguishes modern humans from other hominids and the rest of the animal kingdom is the ability to transform thoughts into pictures . These pictures may be produced by an additive process, such as painting, drawing, or the application of a residue such as beeswax, or they may be created by a reductive process, such as engraving, pounding or pecking (Bednarik, 1993). The latter group of pictures are termed``petroglyphs''. ...
... The direct dating of petroglyphs has been especially intractable, because the reductive process involved in their manufacture leaves behind no substance to signify``time zero'' (Bednarik, 1993). Markings are generally too shallow to distinguish dierential production rates of cosmogenic radionuclides (e.g. ...
Luminescence dating has a proud history of association with archaeology, beginning almost half a century ago. The subsequent decades of research have seen a range of archaeometric applications of luminescence dating: from fired pottery and burnt flints to sediments incorporated into occupation deposits and earthen constructions. Important contributions have been made to topics as diverse as modern human origins, continental colonisations and the dating of prehistoric rock art. This paper provides an overview of these applications, with a particular focus on recent findings such as those from Tabun Cave in Israel, Diring Yuriakh in Siberia, and Jinmium in Australia.
... The relative chronological framework attempted for the abraded or hammered petroglyphs, the finger markings, calcite deposits, sediments and associated lithic assemblages in Malangine Cave (Figure 3) was the first comprehensive attempt of direct dating of rock art (Bednarik 1981a(Bednarik , 1981b(Bednarik , 1993(Bednarik , 1997. As noted above, about half of the carbon contained in carbonate speleothems is derived from the atmosphere, and in most environments from respired carbon dioxide. ...
Modern rock art dating began with the analysis of secondary calcite deposits in an Australian cave that are directly and physically related to petroglyphs sandwiched between them. Since then, further work has been conducted but has resulted in more questions than answers. This paper summarises the research so far conducted on the isotopic geochemistry of such deposits and the implications for the scientific dating of cave petroglyphs. Caution is advocated in the interpretation of these empirical results and a possible strategy for future research is identified.
... Although not without ambiguity (see below), apparent symbol use is indicated by the so-called Bradshaw figures in the rock art of the Kimberley district of Western Australia (Morwood 2002). In Australia, like elsewhere in the world, rock art is notoriously difficult to date, whether by absolute or relative methods (see Ward & Tuniz 2000;Bednarik 1993;Franklin 1996;Rosenfeld 1993;Watchman 1993a). Optical dating of quartz sands from mudwasp nests overlying rock paintings in western Arnhem Land highlights the problems inherent in dating rock art to the Pleistocene by superimposition of subject matter alone . ...
Australia was colonized by at least 40,000 bp and scientists agree that the continent was only ever occupied by anatomically and behaviourally modern humans. Australia thus offers an alternative early record for the archaeological expression of behavioural modernity. This review finds that the pattern of change in the Australian archaeological sequence bears remarkable similarity to the pattern from the Lower to Upper Palaeolithic in the Old World, a finding that is inconsistent with the ‘symbolic revolution’ model of the origin of modern behaviour. This highlights the need for archaeologists to rethink the implications of the various criteria and scales of analysis used to identify modern human behaviour.
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