Uranium-series dating rock art in East Timor
Date
2007
Authors
Aubert, Maxime
O'Connor, Susan
McCulloch, Malcolm
Mortimer, Graham
Watchman, Alan
Richer-LaFleche, M
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Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
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.
Description
Keywords
Keywords: archaeology; human evolution; inductively coupled plasma method; mass spectrometry; rock art; uranium series dating; Asia; Eurasia; Lesser Sunda Islands; Malay Archipelago; Southeast Asia; Sunda Isles; Timor; Timor-Leste East Timor; Human evolution; Multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry; Rock art; Uranium-series dating
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Source
Journal of Archaeological Science
Type
Journal article
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2037-12-31