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Radiocarbon dating of charcoal-pigmented rock paintings u
Using a modified wet-chemical pretreatment coupled with plasma-chemical oxidation, we have dated several rock paintings containing charcoal as pigment. Because rock paintings are important, irreplaceable cultural materials, many of which are disappearing due to natural causes and vandalism, the extraction of the available scientific content is of great importance. A NaOH pretreatment scheme allows us to obtain dates on samples of only a few milligrams of total background and charcoal material while still removing humid acid contamination. Studies of the efficacy of the pretreatment in comparison with the standard acid-alkali-acid pretreatment show no statistical difference in the results obtained on both "synthetic'' samples of known-age charcoal mixed with limestone and charcoal pigment from a rock painting in Montana. We have now plasma-chemically oxidized and, using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), radiocarbon dated charcoal-pigmented paintings from west Texas, California, and the Chillagoe and Mitchell-Palmer regions of Australia.
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Includes bibliographical references: pages 86-95.