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The chronology of hand stencils in European Palaeolithic rock art: implications of new U-series results from El Castillo Cave (Cantabria, Spain)

The chronology of hand stencils in European Palaeolithic rock art: implications of new U-series results from El Castillo Cave (Cantabria, Spain)
The chronology of hand stencils in European Palaeolithic rock art: implications of new U-series results from El Castillo Cave (Cantabria, Spain)
The hand stencils of European Paleolithic art tend to be considered of pre-Magdalenian age and scholars have generally assigned them to the Gravettian period. At El Castillo Cave, application of U-series dating to calcite accretions has established a minimum age of 37,290 years for underlying red hand stencils, implying execution in the earlier part of the Aurignacian if not beforehand. Together with the series of red disks, one of which has a minimum age of 40,800 years, these motifs lie at the base of the El Castillo parietal stratigraphy. The similarity in technique and colour support the notion that both kinds of artistic manifestations are synchronic and define an initial, non-figurative phase of European cave art. However, available data indicate that hand stencils continued to be painted subsequently. Currently, the youngest, reliably dated examples fall in the Late Gravettian, approximately 27,000 years ago
135-152
Garcia-Diez, M.
67bbc6e6-c49f-4e35-aea3-a1d5d30702ea
Garrido, D.
110b1d65-6c2d-4fbd-945c-3cd6cc07fdb0
Hoffmann, D.L.
a907ccc5-1e0b-4db1-a1d8-c79ab6778510
Pettitt, P.B.
8bdb0d4f-34ff-4314-b396-86d51908a9aa
Pike, A.W.G.
e8603e20-0a89-4d57-a294-247b983fc857
Zilhao, J.
b8b1c80f-62b9-465a-8aee-8b71e786e7aa
Garcia-Diez, M.
67bbc6e6-c49f-4e35-aea3-a1d5d30702ea
Garrido, D.
110b1d65-6c2d-4fbd-945c-3cd6cc07fdb0
Hoffmann, D.L.
a907ccc5-1e0b-4db1-a1d8-c79ab6778510
Pettitt, P.B.
8bdb0d4f-34ff-4314-b396-86d51908a9aa
Pike, A.W.G.
e8603e20-0a89-4d57-a294-247b983fc857
Zilhao, J.
b8b1c80f-62b9-465a-8aee-8b71e786e7aa

Garcia-Diez, M., Garrido, D., Hoffmann, D.L., Pettitt, P.B., Pike, A.W.G. and Zilhao, J. (2015) The chronology of hand stencils in European Palaeolithic rock art: implications of new U-series results from El Castillo Cave (Cantabria, Spain). Journal of Anthropological Sciences, 93, 135-152. (doi:10.4436/jass.93004).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The hand stencils of European Paleolithic art tend to be considered of pre-Magdalenian age and scholars have generally assigned them to the Gravettian period. At El Castillo Cave, application of U-series dating to calcite accretions has established a minimum age of 37,290 years for underlying red hand stencils, implying execution in the earlier part of the Aurignacian if not beforehand. Together with the series of red disks, one of which has a minimum age of 40,800 years, these motifs lie at the base of the El Castillo parietal stratigraphy. The similarity in technique and colour support the notion that both kinds of artistic manifestations are synchronic and define an initial, non-figurative phase of European cave art. However, available data indicate that hand stencils continued to be painted subsequently. Currently, the youngest, reliably dated examples fall in the Late Gravettian, approximately 27,000 years ago

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Accepted/In Press date: 2015
Published date: 2015
Organisations: Archaeology

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 373649
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/373649
PURE UUID: 47ac7640-eff5-4233-8b1b-f81a5abd953c
ORCID for A.W.G. Pike: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5610-8948

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Date deposited: 26 Jan 2015 11:23
Last modified: 11 Jul 2024 01:50

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Contributors

Author: M. Garcia-Diez
Author: D. Garrido
Author: D.L. Hoffmann
Author: P.B. Pettitt
Author: A.W.G. Pike ORCID iD
Author: J. Zilhao

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