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ARCHAEOLOGY

Trouble on the dating scene

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, pages 925–926 (2018)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 09 May 2018

This article has been updated

New dates for Spanish rock art open up the possibility that Neanderthals were artists, but further evidence is required before we can be certain.

The ability to accurately date rock art, those images left in rock shelters and caves by humans in the past, has important implications for our understanding of the origins of art, symbolism and the cognitive abilities of earlier peoples. Two recent articles reporting a series of dates on cave paintings from Spain1, as well as on pigment-covered seashells2, make the intriguing claim that Neanderthals, as well as modern humans, were artists. But directly dating rock art is a difficult task because there is usually little in the art itself, either painted or engraved, that can be dated by existing techniques. The new Spanish dates represent a major contribution to Upper Palaeolithic art chronologies, and the technique employed has huge potential for further refining chronologies. However, the new dates are not free from problems.

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Fig. 1: The U–Th technique explained.

Change history

  • 09 May 2018

    In the version of this News & Views originally published, the name Hoffmann was incorrectly spelt as Hoffman in two instances. This has been corrected.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rock Art Research Institute, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    David G. Pearce & Adelphine Bonneau

  2. Archaeology Laboratories, Archaeometry Research Group and CELAT, Laval University, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada

    Adelphine Bonneau

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  1. David G. Pearce
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  2. Adelphine Bonneau
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Correspondence to David G. Pearce.

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Pearce, D.G., Bonneau, A. Trouble on the dating scene. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 925–926 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0540-4

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