Dating Cave Art
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A Knowledge of dating cave art accumulated unevenly across painted and engraved caves. A striking report could establish that a pattern existed, yet it could not show whether radioactive decay operated elsewhere. Researchers examining dating cave art therefore moved toward shared definitions and planned comparisons based on uranium-series dating rather than discarding the earlier record. B For the present account of dating cave art, cave images may survive for tens of thousands of years, but the pigment itself does not always contain material that can be dated directly. In archaeological science, the term terminus ante quem refers to a latest possible date before which an event must have occurred. The definition gives researchers a common starting point for discussing dating cave art, but it does not identify a cause by itself. Two observations of dating cave art can share the label terminus ante quem while differing in scale, timing or origin. C Researchers rely chiefly on uranium-series dating to investigate dating cave art. Research on dating cave art has found that mineral layers above or below art are sampled carefully and combined with stratigraphy and pigment analysis. They decide their comparison, exclusions and outcome measures for dating cave art in advance. A result about dating cave art is treated as stronger when it survives more than one source of evidence, not simply when one instrument measuring dating cave art reports many decimal places. D The evidence about dating cave art is informative but conditional. One point relevant to dating cave art is that new dating has shown great antiquity for some images, but a mineral age may only set a minimum or maximum boundary. Researchers test radioactive decay as an explanation. Evidence reviewed for dating cave art shows that unstable isotopes change at known rates that allow elapsed time to be estimated under stated conditions. Confidence in radioactive decay rises when independent measures of dating cave art agree and rival explanations fail, rather than when a single comparison happens to be statistically precise. E Interpretation of dating cave art must stop short of a universal claim. For the present account of dating cave art, tiny samples can be contaminated, and dating a covering mineral is not identical to dating the moment an image was made. Future work on dating cave art is organised around replicated micro-samples. For future research on dating cave art, replicated micro-samples and independent methods will narrow dates while minimising damage to rare art. This use of replicated micro-samples targets a specific uncertainty about dating cave art rather than merely increasing the volume of data. F Practical programmes translate evidence about dating cave art into action. The discussion of dating cave art notes that researchers compare dates, style, archaeology and cave formation without assuming that similar images are the same age. Their stated focus is cultural chronology. Teams working on dating cave art compare later outcomes with conditions before implementation and record unintended effects. This evaluation of dating cave art determines whether the original explanation involving radioactive decay remains useful outside the research setting.