Cave painting, dating

Valladas, H. (2003), Direct radiocarbon dating of prehistoric cave paintings by accelerator mass spectrometry, Meas. Sci. Technol. 14, 1487-1492. 

The use of paint dates to prehistoric art, mainly about 35,000 years ago, when the long-skull Cro-Magnon people of the Paleolithic period made cave paintings. They were restricted to only a few pigments of local colors—earth tones of yellow, red, black, brown, and white—derived from plants, animals, and minerals and mixed with animal fat to make the first paints. These paints required a binder to adhere them to cave walls Chemists think that Cro-Magnon artists used saliva Today, artists are attempting to duplicate the paints used in these cave paintings. 

Creer, K. M., Kopper, J. S., "Paleomagnetic Dating of Cave Paintings in... 

Perhaps the earliest and most striking example is the cave paintings discovered at Altamira in Spain and Lascaux in France in the nineteenth century. These paintings of bison and horses date from the last ice age, some 12,000-17,000 years ago, and illustrate the strong adhesion of fine pigments to the cave wall (see Fig. 1.9). Presumably, the ancient artists had ground up the... 

Cave painting n. The art produced in the form of paintings on the walls of caves from the beginning of the Old Stone Age to the end of the New Stone Age, around 3000 Bc. The entire period covers a span of some 200,000 years. The Paleolithic cave paints at Altamira (Spain) and those at Lascaux (France) are believed to date between 40,000 and 10,000 bc. 

Carbon dating of small bits of charcoal used in cave paintings has determined that some of the paintings are from 10 000 to 30 000 y old. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5730 y. In a 1 /xg-sample of carbon from a live tree, the activity of carbon-14 is 6.4 pCi. If researchers determine that 1 p,g of charcoal from a prehistoric cave painting in France has an activity of 0.80 pCi, what is the age of the painting (16.4)... 

The technique of carbon dating is used to determine the age of ancient cave paintings. 

Prehistoric Art n Painting and sculpture produced by artists of the Old, Middle, and New Stone ages. See Cave Painting. The earliest known piece of prehistoric sculpture is the famous Venus of Wfllendorf (Natural History Museum, Vienna), a small fertility image of Paleolithic origin dating around 11,000 bc. 

Valladas H et al (2001) Radiocarbon AMS dates for Paleolithic cave paintings. Radiocarbon 43(2B) 977-986... 

Carbon dating of small bits of charcoal used in cave paintings has determined that some of the paintings are from 10 000 to... 

These hallucinogenic mushroom use dates as far back as the earliest recorded history can relate. Ancient paintings of mushroom-headed humanoids, dating back to 5,000 B.C. have been found in caves on the Tassili plateau of Northern Algeria. Ancient Central and South American cultures built temples to mushroom gods and carved many statues classified as mushroom stones. These stone carvings, in the... 

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