Comparative Dating of Carbon-based San Rock Art Samples Using AMS Radiocarbon Analysis and Plasma-Chemical Oxidation

Author(s): Ruth Ann Armitage

Year: 2025

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.

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Over the past ten years, extensive characterization of San rock art has been conducted, leading to the identification of a wide range of coloring materials. The black paintings are composed of four classes of carbon-based materials: soot, charcoal, carbon black, and burnt bones, providing a potential avenue for <sup>14</sup>C dating. By employing the comprehensive characterization of the paintings, it was feasible to diminish the requisite sample size for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating. Nevertheless, this approach necessitates chemical pretreatments, which are particularly invasive for such fragile specimens. An alternative approach is plasma-chemical oxidation (PCO), which involves the formation of CO₂ through a low-temperature chemical reaction, which generates microgram samples of carbon for dating purposes. Following the development of minimally destructive pretreatments for the removal of contaminants, PCO was tested on a range of paint samples.

We present the results of PCO and AMS dating of rock paintings from various sites in South Africa. This is the first time that the same rock art samples have been independently prepared and dated by these two methods. Determining the age of rock paintings is crucial for understanding the context in which they were created and for situating them within their broader historical context.

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Cite this Record

Comparative Dating of Carbon-based San Rock Art Samples Using AMS Radiocarbon Analysis and Plasma-Chemical Oxidation. Ruth Ann Armitage. Presented at The 90th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2025 ( tDAR id: 509455)

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Keywords

General
Archaeometry & Materials Analysis: XRF/pXRF • Dating Techniques: Radiometric • Iconography and Art: Rock Art • Worldwide

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51385