Rock art
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U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art Open
Neandertal cave art It has been suggested that Neandertals, as well as modern humans, may have painted caves. Hoffmann et al. used uranium-thorium dating of carbonate crusts to show that cave paintings from three different sites in Spain m…
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Prehistory of Australia Open
Preface..1 The past uncovered and its ownership..2 The diversity of surviving traces..3 Dating the past..4 Changing landscapes..5 People, language and society..6 Subsistence and reciprocity..7 Seafarers to Sahul..8 Sahul: a Pleistocene con…
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Oldest cave art found in Sulawesi Open
An image of a pig painted at least 45,500 years ago on a cave wall in Sulawesi may be the earliest figurative rock art ever found.
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The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art Open
This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will …
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Satellite imagery-based monitoring of archaeological site damage in the Syrian civil war Open
Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the rich archaeological heritage of Syria and northern Iraq has faced severe threats, including looting, combat-related damage, and intentional demolition of monuments. However, the inaccess…
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Global-Scale Archaeological Prospection using CORONA Satellite Imagery: Automated, Crowd-Sourced, and Expert-led Approaches Open
Declassified CORONA satellite imagery, collected from 1960–1972 as part of the world’s first intelligence satellite program, provides nearly global, high-resolution, stereo imagery that predates many of the land-use changes seen in recent …
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Middle and Later Stone Age chronology of Kisese II rockshelter (UNESCO World Heritage Kondoa Rock-Art Sites), Tanzania Open
The archaeology of East Africa during the last ~65,000 years plays a central role in debates about the origins and dispersal of modern humans, Homo sapiens. Despite the historical importance of the region to these discussions, reliable chr…
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12,000-Year-old Aboriginal rock art from the Kimberley region, Western Australia Open
Radiocarbon-dated mud wasp nests provide a terminal Pleistocene age estimate for an Australian Aboriginal rock art style.
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COSMO-SkyMed SAR for Detection and Monitoring of Archaeological and Cultural Heritage Sites Open
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery has long been used in archaeology since the earliest space radar missions in the 1980s. In the current scenario of SAR missions, the Italian Space Agency (ASI)’s COnstellation of small Satellites for …
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High precision U/Th dating of the rock paintings at Mt. Huashan, Guangxi, southern China Open
The rock art and the associated natural scenery at 38 sites located in the Zuojiang River valley, in the southwest of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, southern China, were inscribed recently on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The painted pa…
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Detection of Archaeological Looting from Space: Methods, Achievements and Challenges Open
Illegal excavations in archaeological heritage sites (namely “looting”) are a global phenomenon. Satellite images are nowadays massively used by archaeologists to systematically document sites affected by looting. In parallel, remote sensi…
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Characterizing the pigments and paints of prehistoric artists Open
This paper offers a broad and critical overview of current discussions on the potential uses and the characterization of pigments in prehistory, with a special focus on prehistoric rock art. Today, analytical approaches to pigments and pai…
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Rock Art and Ontology Open
This article reviews recent ontological debates in archaeology and examines how ontology has been discussed in rock art studies. It questions the prevailing symbolic analysis of rock art and critically questions the epistemological foundat…
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Maliwawa figures—a previously undescribed Arnhem Land rock art style Open
In this paper, a previously undescribed rock art style consisting of large human figures and animals with stroke-line infill is introduced. These depictions have been named Maliwawa Figures. They are primarily found in northwest Arnhem Lan…
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Methods for U-series dating of CaCO 3 crusts associated with Palaeolithic cave art and application to Iberian sites Open
U-series dating is a precise and accurate geochronological tool which is widely applied to date secondary CaCO3 formation, for example in speleothem based palaeoclimate research. It can also be employed to provide chronological constraints…
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Introduction: Evidence for entheogen use in prehistory and world religions Open
This introduction to the special issue reviews research that supports the hypothesis that psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, were central features in the development of religion. The greater response of the human serotonergic system to…
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Optical Remote Sensing Potentials for Looting Detection Open
Looting of archaeological sites is illegal and considered a major anthropogenic threat for cultural heritage, entailing undesirable and irreversible damage at several levels, such as landscape disturbance, heritage destruction, and adverse…
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Identification of plant cells in black pigments of prehistoric Spanish Levantine rock art by means of a multi-analytical approach. A new method for social identity materialization using chaîne opératoire Open
We present a new multi-analytical approach to the characterization of black pigments in Spanish Levantine rock art. This new protocol seeks to identify the raw materials that were used, as well as reconstruct the different technical gestur…
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Hand stencils with and without narrowed fingers at two new rock art sites in Sulawesi, Indonesia Open
The rock art at Gua Andomo and Gua Lampetia, two newly described sites in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, is dominated by hand stencils. The Gua Andomo stencils include a variant focused on Sulawesi which involves narrowed fingers. This…
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Artificial Intelligence, 3D Documentation, and Rock Art—Approaching and Reflecting on the Automation of Identification and Classification of Rock Art Images Open
Rock art carvings, which are best described as petroglyphs, were produced by removing parts of the rock surface to create a negative relief. This tradition was particularly strong during the Nordic Bronze Age (1700–550 BC) in southern Scan…
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By All Means Necessary – 2.5D and 3D Recording of Surfaces in the Study of Southern Scandinavian Rock Art Open
Southern Scandinavia is Europe’s richest region in terms of figurative rock art. It is imperative to document this cultural heritage for future generations. To achieve this, researchers need to use the most objective recording methods avai…
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The Archaeology of Rock Art in Western Arnhem Land, Australia Open
Western Arnhem Land, in the Top End of Australia’s Northern Territory, has a rich archaeological landscape, ethnographic record and body of rock art that displays an astonishing array of imagery on shelter walls and ceilings. While the arc…
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Salt Weathering of Natural Stone: A Review of Comparative Laboratory Studies Open
Natural stone is an important component of historical heritage (buildings and art objects such as sculptures or rock engravings), and it is still widely used in contemporary works. Soluble salts are the main erosive agent in the built envi…
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New Insights into the Study of Paleolithic Rock Art: Dismantling the “Basque Country Void” Open
The Vasco-Cantabrian region of northern Spain, together with southwestern France, is one of the richest areas in terms of Paleolithic cave art, but, until recently, by far the highest concentration of sites had been in the central-western …
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<i>Datura</i> quids at Pinwheel Cave, California, provide unambiguous confirmation of the ingestion of hallucinogens at a rock art site Open
Significance Proponents of the altered states of consciousness (ASC) model have argued that hallucinogens have influenced the prehistoric making of images in caves and rock shelters. However, the lack of direct evidence for the consumption…
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The first use of portable <span>Raman</span> instrumentation for the <i>in situ</i> study of prehistoric rock paintings in <span>Patagonian</span> sites Open
Portable Raman spectroscopy is applied for the first time on rock art paintings from hunter‐gatherers in three different provinces in Patagonia, Argentina (Neuquén, Río Negro and Chubut). Selected archaeological sites were examined, reveal…
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Ecosystem Services of Riparian Restoration: A Review of Rock Detention Structures in the Madrean Archipelago Ecoregion Open
In northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States, limited water supplies and fragile landscapes jeopardize world-renowned biological diversity. Simple rock detention structures have been used to manage agricultural water for over …
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Into the Past: A Step Towards a Robust Kimberley Rock Art Chronology Open
The recent establishment of a minimum age estimate of 39.9 ka for the origin of rock art in Sulawesi has challenged claims that Western Europe was the locus for the production of the world's earliest art assemblages. Tantalising excavated …
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Engraved Biographies: Rock Art and the Life-Histories of Bronze Age Objects Open
This article deals with engravings depicting some times lifesized Bronze Age metal objects from “closed” burial contexts and “openair” sites in northern Europe. These rock art images have mainly been used for comparative dating with the…
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Connecting to the ancestors: Why rock art is important for indigenous Australians and their well-being Open
The rock art of Australia, consisting of paintings, drawings, stencils, prints, petroglyphs, finger flutings and figures made of beeswax, remains important for contemporary Indigenous Australians on many levels despite cultural, linguistic…