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Radiocarbon dates for pictographs in Ignatievskaya Cave, Russia: Holocene age for supposed Pleistocene fauna

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

K.L. Steelman
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, PO Box 300012, College Station TX 77842-3012, USA. steelman@mail.chem.tamu.edurowe@mail.chem.tamu.edu
M.W. Rowe
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, PO Box 300012, College Station TX 77842-3012, USA. steelman@mail.chem.tamu.edurowe@mail.chem.tamu.edu
V.N. Shirokov
Affiliation:
Institute of History & Archaeology, Urals Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, 56 Luxemburg Street, Ekaterinburg 620026, Russia.istor@uran.ru
J.R. Southon
Affiliation:
Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA 94551-9900, USA. Southon1@llnl.gov

Extract

Samples from three charcoal pictographs at Ignatievskaya Cave, in the southern Ural Mountains of Russia, have been radiocarbon dated. An advanced antiquity was expected, with some paintings thought to be more than 10,000 years old, as suggested by the imagery. One charcoal painting, for example, resembles a mammoth. The radiocarbon date of that motif, however, dates only to 7370±50 BP. If that motif actually represents a live mammoth, it places mammoth extinction in the Urals nearer to the present than is currently accepted. A charcoal pigment sample, a drawing of lines radiating from a central focus, has also been dated; its age was a few hundred years older than the ‘mammoth’: 7920±60 BP. A charcoal line has been dated with an age of 6030±110 BP. Although radiocarbon analysis was attempted on a red-pigmented painting of a woman, there was not enough organic material in the paint sample to obtain a viable date. Radiocarbon dates on pictographs in Ignatievskaya Cave obtained so far suggest that the paintings may be more recent than has been supposed.

Type
News & Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2002

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