doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aay3922. eCollection 2020 Feb.
12,000-Year-old Aboriginal rock art from the Kimberley region, Western Australia
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- PMID:32076647
- PMCID: PMC7002160
- DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aay3922
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12,000-Year-old Aboriginal rock art from the Kimberley region, Western Australia
Damien Finch et al. Sci Adv..
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Abstract
The Kimberley region in Western Australia hosts one of the world's most substantial bodies of indigenous rock art thought to extend in a series of stylistic or iconographic phases from the present day back into the Pleistocene. As with other rock art worldwide, the older styles have proven notoriously difficult to date quantitatively, requiring new scientific approaches. Here, we present the radiocarbon ages of 24 mud wasp nests that were either over or under pigment from 21 anthropomorphic motifs of the Gwion style (previously referred to as "Bradshaws") from the middle of the relative stylistic sequence. We demonstrate that while one date suggests a minimum age of c. 17 ka for one motif, most of the dates support a hypothesis that these Gwion paintings were produced in a relatively narrow period around 12,000 years ago.
Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).
Figures
(A) A recently constructedSceliphron laetum mud wasp nest. (B) Underside of the nest after removal from the rock surface with basal nest structure highlighted to show (C) the characteristic oval shape evident in weathered nests, leaving (D) just a remnant of mineralized mud over time. (E) A typical remnant mud wasp nest (DR006_03-1) overlying pigment from a Gwion motif before removal and (F) the remainder with pigment revealed underneath. Photo credit: Damien Finch.
Calibrated dates for the oldest wasp nests and the associated reliability score (10 is the most reliable, and 1 is the least). The bar underneath each probability distribution plot indicates the 95% probability range, with the median marked with a cross. The minimum age constraints provided by overlying nests (indicated with blue bars, starting just beyond the 95% probability range for the nest) and the maximum age constraints from underlying nests (brown bars) together with the age bracket for DR015_07 suggest a narrow age range for production of most of these Gwion motifs around 12,400 years ago (cal B.P.) (red vertical bar), apart from DR013_10-1 and DR006_03-1.
Blue (brown) horizontal bars show the possible age range for the associated motif over (under) the nest. Scenario 1 (A): All motifs were painted in a short period permitting no major overlap between the ages of underlying and overlying nests. Scenario 2 (B): Motifs were painted between 2000 and 4000 years ago so the ages of underlying and overlying nests will overlap significantly. The probability functions in (C) and (D) are the sum of the possible age ranges for motifs from overlying (blue curve) and underlying (brown curve) nests.
Calibrated dates for the oldest wasp nests with a reliability score of at least 5. (A) Nest over motif: Nest sample locations are indicated in blue on the black figures. (B) Nest under motif: Nest sample locations are indicated in brown. (C) Nests under and over the same motif DR015_07 and the calculated age bracket for motif DR015_07 using the OxCal 4.3.2 software (36,40) and the code listed in text S1. Illustrations: Pauline Heaney.
Sum of the cumulative probability density functions for the ages of nests over (blue) and under (brown) pigment and the age bracket for motif DR015_07 (red). The intersection of the blue and brown areas then represents the probability distribution for the age of Gwion motifs. The outliers, DR013_10 and DR006_03, are included.
Excluding the two possible outlier dates for DR013_10 and DR006_03, the Gwion style is defined temporally by combining the age distributions for the oldest over-art nest (DT1207_03), the youngest under-art nest (DR013_06), and the age bracket for DR015_07. The bar under the curve is the 95% probability range, and the cross marks the median of the corrected distribution. Modeled using OxCal v4.3.2 (40); r:5 SHCal13 atmospheric curve (35) and the code listed in text S1.
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