AMS Radiocarbon Date for Precolumbian Caribbean Rock Art: Borbón Cave No. 1, Dominican Republic

Abstract

We present an AMS radiocarbon date from a bird image in a cave on the island of Hispaniola in the northern Caribbean. Borbón Cave No. 1 contains a key rock art assemblage that likely reflects a significant part of past native Taíno societies’ symbolic thought and beliefs. The grouping has already served to define one rock art style in the Antilles: the Borbón School. Our sample yielded a date of 890 ± 30 BP (1045–1225 cal AD). This result, as well as additional published dates for the region, confirms that these images were created before European contact with the region. Further dating comparison indicates that Taíno artistic traditions persisted for some years after the arrival and settlement of Spanish colonists on the island.

Rock art and frontier conflict in Southeast Asia: Insights from direct radiocarbon ages for the large human figures of Gua Sireh, Sarawak

“…We have confidence in the radiocarbon determinations returned for the two large anthromorphs at Gua Sireh for several reasons. Firstly, we recognize the ‘old charcoal’ problem needs to be accounted for, whereby charcoal from older cultural events is used in the production of rock art [ 16 , 25 , 66 , 71 ], especially given GS1, taken from a motif known to have been drawn between 1990 and 2010, returned an age of 149 + 20 BP. As can be seen in the elevation model presented at the top of Fig 4 , the cave floor slumps where previous excavations have been backfilled at Gua Sireh, and there is a visible change in the color of surface sediments indicating bioturbation from backfilling events.…”

“…The importance of pigment characterizations for understanding and interpreting numeric age determinations of rock art continues to be demonstrated by numerous studies across the globe [69][70][71]. The characterized pigments used to draw four Gua Sireh anthropomorphs, even the recent stick figure, are largely uniform, indicating that the same black pigment material has been used over time.…”

El arte-minería en Amona, Borinquen (Isla de Mona, Puerto Rico)

“…Después del 1100 d.C. y hasta el período colonial temprano dominan reptiles o seres humanos-reptiles y otras figuras a cuerpo completo (Rodríguez Ramos et al, 2021, p. 23). Al otro lado del Canal, en la República Dominicana, la pictografía perteneciente a la llamada escuela de Borbón, ausente en Mona, también se fechó en esta fase (García-Diez et al, 2022;López Belando, 2018). Este avance reciente en establecer cronologías para el arte rupestre es muy significativo para refinar las suposiciones sobre su desarrollo y temporalidades.…”