Palaeolithic Cave Art & Uranium Series Disequilibrium Dating

After several decades in which the evolution of Palaeolithic art seemed a settled scientific matter, new discoveries on one hand and improvements in dating methods on the other have called into question the soundness of this apparently well-founded construction.

 New sites and recent data, obtained by increasingly refined and precise radiometric dating techniques, have shaken the interpretive building erected mainly on the postulates of A. Leroi-Gourhan and which had stood, virtually unchanged, over the last quarter of the twentieth century. 

This volume, with some of the presentations in the Session A11a - The chronology of Palaeolithic cave art: new data, new debates, organized by Roberto Ontan~on, Pilar Utrilla, Marcel Otte and Tom Higham at the XVII UISPP World Congress (Burgos, 1e7 September 2014), does not propose to give definitive solutions to this debate. On the contrary, it aims to recapitulate the latest developments in this field and reflect the current discussion on both methodological aspects and their historical and anthropological implications, considering radio-chronological data obtained for rock art but also gathering information from the archaeological sites where these representations are situated and which provide vital information for a proper contextualization of the most ancient graphic evidence in human history.

The Chronology of Palaeolithic Cave art: new data, new debates

Quaternary International

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