Only Time Will Tell: A Review of the Methodology of Direct Rock Art Dating

Bednarik, Robert G.

doi:10.1111/j.1475-4754.1996.tb00757.x

Cited by 37 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…Dreamtime Superhighway: an analysis of Sydney Basin rock art and prehistoric information exchange regional patterns for the Sydney region The problem of demonstrating contemporaneity between art and deposit relates primarily to the fact that parietal art, until recently, could not be directly dated. Theoretically AMS radiocarbon dating is the solution to this issue, but this technique is still in its adolescence (Keyser 2001) because of the relative newness of the techniques and the lack of theorising about applicability of these techniques to art assemblages generally (see Beck et al 1998;Bednarik 1996;Hyman and Rowe 1997;McDonald 2000c;McDonald et al 1990;Rosenfeld and Smith 1997).…”

Section: The Contemporaneity Of Art and Depositmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dreamtime Superhighway (TA27) : Sydney Basin Rock Art and Prehistoric Information Exchange

McDonald¹

2008

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Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia -lands that remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present. List of volumes in Terra AustralisVolume 1: Burrill Lake and Currarong: Coastal Sites in Southern New South Wales. R.J. Lampert (1971) Volume 2: Ol Tumbuna: Archaeological Excavations in the Eastern Central Highlands, Papua New Guinea. J.P. White (1972) Volume 3 vi Dreamtime Superhighway: an analysis of Sydney Basin rock art and prehistoric information exchange FOREWORD I remember the visit with clarity: it was 1991 and my first trip to Australia. One day was spent at Sydney's West Head with the young and enthusiastic Jo McDonald, where we toured some of the rock engraving sites and the painted Great Mackerel rock shelter. I can still see the large flat curving rocks at West Head on which animals had been engraved -fish, kangaroos, a goanna. And, as is so often the case when I visit rock art sites, my imagination gets going as to the 'how's' and 'why's'. I try to run some sort of a show in my head as to the people who produced these, viewed these, and what kinds of significations the images and their makings played in the lives of past peoples. At the time of this visit, Jo McDonald was well into her 1994 dissertationthe work upon which this monograph is based. Already, in that PhD dissertation, she was able to touch on some of the things that my imagination was searching for. Thus, it is with great pleasure and even more enthusiasm that I am writing this Foreword to a revised and thoroughly up-dated monograph based on that initial dissertation research.At the time of the 1994 dissertation, the anthropological and archaeological study of 'rock art' was really emerging into new trends and new prominence. Surely Australia was one of the leaders in the training of students and in the research that contextualized the images and 'art', thanks to such scholars as Andrée Rosenfeld, Robert Layton, and John Clegg among others. By this time, the work of David Lewis-Williams and colleagues in southern Africa had set off numerous studies world-wide into the relationship between the production of rock art images and altered states of consciousness and the role of shamans in image-making practices. But this was not the direction or focus of rock art studies in Australia, and McDonald's original work would not be tempted either. Rather, she carried out an extensive project of contextualizing the rock art in question, and in two different ways. First, she wanted to give us an understanding of the rock art in its archaeological contexts-sheltered or open, dates and chronologies, site types and, in general, what the archaeology c...

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Section: The Contemporaneity Of Art and Depositmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dreamtime Superhighway (TA27) : Sydney Basin Rock Art and Prehistoric Information Exchange

McDonald¹

2008

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“…For example, rock art has been dated by luminescence dating of sediments deposited over the art (and sometimes under it) by mud-daubing insects . Dating of quartz grains incorporated in or under rock art has also been considered (Bednarik, 1996).…”

Section: Suitability For Datingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The application of luminescence dating in American archaeology

Feathers

1997

J Archaeol Method Theory

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“…While both calcium oxalate and mud wasp nest samples each have limitations for radiocarbon dating (cf. Aubert 2012;Bednarik 1996Bednarik , 2000Bednarik , 2002Bednarik , 2007David et al 2013;Gillespie 1997;Rosenfeld and Smith 1997), our study has found that multiple radiocarbon age determinations from these two different substances can together generate robust dates for rock art.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%