TY - JOUR
T1 - Uranium-series dating rock art in East Timor
AU - Aubert, Maxime
AU - O'Connor, Sue
AU - McCulloch, Malcolm
AU - Mortimer, Graham
AU - Watchman, Alan
AU - Richer-LaFlèche, Marc
PY - 2007/6
Y1 - 2007/6
N2 - At many sites throughout the world rock art paintings have been covered by naturally deposited calcite laminations, which we demonstrate can be individually dated by recently improved uranium-series methods. Here we report the application of multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to measure the ages for carbonate coatings that bracket red pigment at Lene Hara cave, East Timor, which could be evidence of human painting. These analyses establish the feasibility of dating milligram samples of finely layered calcite deposits associated with archaeological evidence of human occupation. In addition to confirming an age of less then 6300 years for the visible red paintings on the carbonate surface we also report a substantially older age of 24,000 to 29,300 years for a similar, older red pigment lamination providing possible evidence for an earlier painting episode.
AB - At many sites throughout the world rock art paintings have been covered by naturally deposited calcite laminations, which we demonstrate can be individually dated by recently improved uranium-series methods. Here we report the application of multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to measure the ages for carbonate coatings that bracket red pigment at Lene Hara cave, East Timor, which could be evidence of human painting. These analyses establish the feasibility of dating milligram samples of finely layered calcite deposits associated with archaeological evidence of human occupation. In addition to confirming an age of less then 6300 years for the visible red paintings on the carbonate surface we also report a substantially older age of 24,000 to 29,300 years for a similar, older red pigment lamination providing possible evidence for an earlier painting episode.
KW - East Timor
KW - Human evolution
KW - Multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
KW - Rock art
KW - Uranium-series dating
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33847643739&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jas.2006.09.017
DO - 10.1016/j.jas.2006.09.017
M3 - Article
SN - 0305-4403
VL - 34
SP - 991
EP - 996
JO - Journal of Archaeological Science
JF - Journal of Archaeological Science
IS - 6
ER -