U-series dating of Paleolithic art in 11 caves in Spain.

Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 0404511 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1095-9203 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00368075 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Science Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: : Washington, DC : American Association for the Advancement of Science
Original Publication: New York, N.Y. : [s.n.] 1880-

Caves* ; Radiometric Dating*; Engraving and Engravings/*history ; Paintings/*history; Animals ; Calcium Carbonate ; Culture ; History, Ancient ; Humans ; Neanderthals ; Spain ; Uranium

Paleolithic cave art is an exceptional archive of early human symbolic behavior, but because obtaining reliable dates has been difficult, its chronology is still poorly understood after more than a century of study. We present uranium-series disequilibrium dates of calcite deposits overlying or underlying art found in 11 caves, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage sites of Altamira, El Castillo, and Tito Bustillo, Spain. The results demonstrate that the tradition of decorating caves extends back at least to the Early Aurignacian period, with minimum ages of 40.8 thousand years for a red disk, 37.3 thousand years for a hand stencil, and 35.6 thousand years for a claviform-like symbol. These minimum ages reveal either that cave art was a part of the cultural repertoire of the first anatomically modern humans in Europe or that perhaps Neandertals also engaged in painting caves.

Comment in: Science. 2012 Jun 15;336(6087):1387-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1224185. (PMID: 22700907)

4OC371KSTK (Uranium)
H0G9379FGK (Calcium Carbonate)

Date Created: 20120616 Date Completed: 20120914 Latest Revision: 20131121

20250114

10.1126/science.1219957

22700921