Evolution of sandstone rockshelters and the age of rock art in Australia’s Kimberley region

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New approaches to the intractable problem of dating rock art" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Rock art shelters within the Warton Sandstone in the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia follow a developmental sequence that ultimately controls survival and age of paintings within them. The rockshelters develop by initial undermining followed by one or more major slab-falls of unsupported sandstone beds from the ceiling. Each fall creates a new fractured back wall and ceiling that become hosts to rock paintings following a well-defined stylistic sequence. The often-intact sandstone slabs tend to slide partially out of the new rockshelter leaving a narrow ‘corridor’ cave behind and a buildup of sandstone slabs on the floor. The slab falls can often be dated using cosmogenic radionuclides (CRN). Subsequent falls of further beds from the ceiling lead to progressive enlargement of the shelter and eventually final collapse or toppling of the entire shelter with the destruction of any rock art within it. CRN dating shows that slab falls span an almost continuous range from <1000 to >250,000 years, providing maximum ages for paintings produced on the resulting surfaces. Minimum ages can also be found occasionally where an already painted ceiling has fallen. Many rockshelters, and the art within them, are clearly able to survive for tens of thousands of years.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• New approaches to the intractable problem of dating rock art

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51386