Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-zlgnt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-29T04:11:10.682Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cation-ratio dating of rock-engravings from the Olary Province of arid South Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Ronald I. Dorn ,
Margaret Nobbs  and
Tom A. Cahill
Ronald I. Dorn
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
Margaret Nobbs
Affiliation:
8 Hazelwood Avenue, Hazelwood Park, 5006 South Australia, Australia
Tom A. Cahill
Affiliation:
Crocker Nuclear Laboratory, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Desert varnish, the distinctive coating on exposed rock surfaces in arid regions, can be dated by cation ratios, providing a rare means directly to date petroglyphs. A first application of the method, much used in north America, is here reported from Australia, where it indicates minimum ages up to 30,000 years old. And it also shows that the style of figures, so often taken as a measure of chronology, is in this instance largely independent of age.

Information

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 62 , Issue 237 , December 1988 , pp. 681 - 689
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Basedow, H. 1914. Aboriginal rock carvings of great antiquity in South Australia, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 44: 195–211.Google Scholar
Bettinger, R.L. 1982. Aboriginal exchange and territoriality in Owens Valley, California, in Ericson, J.E. & Earle, T.K. (ed.), Contexts for prehistoric exchange: 103–24. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Binford, L.R. 1980. Willow smoke and dogs’ tails: hunter-gatherer settlement systems and archaeological site formation, American Antiquity 45: 4–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butzer, K.W., Fock, G.J. Scott, L. & Stuckenrath, R.. 1979. Dating and context of rock engravings in South Africa, Science 203: 1201–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cahill, T.A. 1980. Proton microprobes and particle-induced X-ray analytical systems, Annual Review Nuclear Particle Science 30: 211–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cahill, T.A., Eldred, R.A. Shadoan, D. Feeney, P.J. Kusko, B.H. & Matsuda, Y.. 1984. Complete elemental analysis of aerosols: PIXE, FAST, LIPM, and MASS, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B3: 291–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campana, B. & King, D.. 1958. Regional geology and mineral resources of the Olary Province, South Australia Department of Mines Bulletin 34.Google Scholar
Colman, S.M. 1982. Chemical weathering of basalts and andesites: evidence from weathering rinds, US. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colman, S.M., Pierce, K.L. & Birkeland, P.W.. 1987. Suggested terminology for Quaternary dating methods, Quaternary Research 28: 314–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorn, R.I. 1983. Cation-ratio dating: a new rock varnish age-determination technique, Quaternary Research 20: 49–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorn, R.I. 1986. Rock varnish as an indicator of aeolian environmental change, in Nickling, W.G. (ed.), Aeolian geomorphology: 291–307. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Dorn, R.I., Bamforth, D.B. Cahill, T.A. Dohrenwend, J.C. Turrin, B.D. Donahue, D.J. Jull, A.J.T. Long, A. Macko, M.E. Weil, E.B. Whitley, D.S. & Zabel, T.H.. 1986. Cation-ratio and accelerator radiocarbon dating of rock varnish on Mojave Artifacts and Landforms, Science 231: 830–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dorn, R.I. & Deniro, M.J.. 1985. Stable carbon isotope ratios of rock varnish organic matter: a new paleoenvironmental indicator, Science 227: 1472–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorn, R.I. & Oberlander, T.M.. 1982. Rock varnish, Progress in Physical Geography 6: 317–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorn, R.I., D. Tanner, B.D. Turrin & J.C. Dohrenwend. 1987a. Cation-ratio dating of Quaternary materials in the east-central Mojave Desert, California, Physical Geography 8: 72–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorn, R.I., Turrin, B.D. Jull, A.J.T. Linick, T.W. & Donahue, D.J.. 1987b. Radiocarbon and cation-ratio ages for rock varnish on Tioga and Tahoe morainal boulders of Pine Creek, eastern Sierra Nevada in California, and paleoclimatic implications, Quaternary Research 28: 38–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorn, R.I. & Whitley, D.S.. 1984. Chronometric and relative age determination of petroglyphs in the western United States, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 42: 308–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dragovich, D. 1986. Minimum age of some desert varnish near Broken Hill, New South Wales, Search 17: 149–51.Google Scholar
Glasovskiy, A.F. 1985. Rock varnish in the glacierized regions of the Pamirs, Data of the Glaciological Studies, (Moscow) 54: 136–41. [In Russian.]Google Scholar
Groube, L., Chappell, J. Muke, I. & Price, D.. 1986. A 40,000 year-old human occupation site at Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea, Nature 324: 453–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guidon, N. & Delibrias, G.. 1985. Carbon-14 dates point to man in the Americas 32,000 years ago, Nature 321: 769–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrington, C.D. & Whitney, J.W.. 1987. Scanning electron microscope method for rock varnish dating, Geology 15: 967–70.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jull, A.J.T., Donahue, D.J. Hatheway, A. Linick, T.W. & Toolin, L.J.. 1986. Production of graphite targets by deposition from CO/H2 for precision accelerator 14C measurements, Radiocarbon 28(2A): 191–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krumbein, W.E. & Jens, K.. 1981. Biogenic rock varnishes of the Negev Desert (Israel): an ecological study of iron and manganese transformation by cyanobacteria and fungi, Oecologia 50: 25–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lewis-Williams, J.D. 1984. Ideological continuities in prehistoric Southern Africa: the evidence of rock art, in Schrire, C. (ed.), Past and Present in hunter gatherer studies: 225–52. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Marchand, D.E. 1974. Chemical weathering, soil development and geochemical fractionation in a part of the White Mountains, Mono and Inyo Counties, California, US Geological Survey Professional Paper 352-J: 379–424.Google Scholar
Maynard, L. 1979. The archaeology of Australian Aboriginal art, in Mead, S.M. (ed.), Exploring the visual arts of Oceania: 83–100. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Nobbs, M. 1984. Rock art in Olary Province, South Australia, Rock Art Research 1: 91–118.Google Scholar
Palmer, F.E., Staley, J.T. Murray, R.G.E. Counsell, T. & Adams, J.B.. 1985. Identification of manganese-oxidizing bacteria from desert varnish, Geomicrobiology Journal 4: 343–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potter, R.M. & Rossman, G.R.. 1979. The manganese-and iron-oxide mineralogy of desert varnish, Chemical Geology 25: 79–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenfeld, A: 1982. Style and meaning in Laura Art: a case study in the formal analysis of style in prehistoric art, Mankind 13: 199–217.Google Scholar
Smith, M.A. 1987. Pleistocene occupation in arid Central Australia, Nature 328: 710–1.Google Scholar
Spaulding, W.G. & Graumlich, L.J.. 1986. The last pluvial climatic episodes in the deserts of southwestern North America, Nature 320: 441–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staley, J.T., Jackson, M.J. Palmer, F.E. Adams, J.B. Borns, D.J. Curtiss, B. & Taylor-George, S.. 1983. Desert varnish coatings and microcolonial fungi on rocks of the Gibson and Great Victoria Deserts, Australia, BMR Journal of Australian Geology and Geophysics 8: 83–7.Google Scholar
Taylor-George, S., Palmer, F. Staley, J.T. Borns, D.J. Curtiss, B. & Adams, J.B.. 1983. Fungi and bacteria involved in desert varnish formation, Microbial Ecology 9: 227–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whitley, D.S. & Dorn, R.I.. 1987. Rock art chronology in eastern California, World Archaeology 19: 150–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yaalon, D.H., Brenner, I. & Koyumdsisky, H.. 1974. Weathering and mobility sequence of minor elements on a basaltic pedomorphic surface, Galilee, Israel, Geoderma 12: 233–44.Google Scholar