Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T02:56:26.552Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Accelerator radiocarbon dating of Natal Drakensberg paintings: results and implications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

A. D. Mazel
Affiliation:
Natal Museum, Private Bag 9070, Pietermaritzburg 3200, South Africa
A. L. Watchman
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology & Archaeology, James Cook University, Townsville QLD 4811, Australia

Extract

As Rosenfeld & Smith report in this number of ANTIQUITY, the reconciliation of conventional chronologies for rock-art with the emergent radiocarbon-based dates is not proving an easy affair. Here are the first steps for the classic area of San hunter-gatherer art, on the South Africa/Lesotho border.

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1997

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.)

References

Cable, F.H. C. 1984. Economy and technology in the Lote Stone Age of Southern Natal. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series 201.Google Scholar
Denninger, E. 1971. The use of paper chromatography to determine the age of albuminous binders and its application to rock paintings, South African Journal of Science Special Publication 2: 8083.Google Scholar
Lewis-Williams, J.D. 1981. Believing and seeing: symbolic meanings in southern San rock paintings. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Mazel, A. D. 1984a. Archaeological survey of the Natal Drakensberg, Natal, South Africa, journal of Field Archaeology 11: 345–56.Google Scholar
Mazel, A. D. 1984b. Diamond 1 and Clarke's Shelter: report on excavations in the northern Drakensberg, Natal, South Africa, Annals of the Natal Museum 26:2570.Google Scholar
Mazel, A. D. 1989. People making history: the last ten thousand years of hunter-gatherer communities in the Thukela Basin, Natal Museum Journal of Humanities 1: 1168.Google Scholar
Mazel, A. D. 1990. Mhlwazini Cave: the excavation of Late Holocene deposits in the northern Natal Drakensberg, Natal, South Africa, Natal Museum Journal of Humanities 2: 95133.Google Scholar
Mazel, A. D. 1992. Collingham Shelter: the excavation of late Holocene deposits, Natal, South Africa, Natal Museum Journal of Humanities 4: 152.Google Scholar
Pager, H. 1971. Ndedema: a documentation of the rock paintings of the Ndedema Gorge. Graz: Akademische Druck.Google Scholar
Rudner, I. 1989. The conservation of rock art in South Africa. Cape Town: National Monuments Council.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M. & Reimer, P. J. 1993. Extended 14C Data Base and revised CALIB 3.0 14C age calibration programme, Radiocarbon 35: 215–30.Google Scholar
Van Der Merwe, N.J., Sealy, J. & Yates, R.. 1987. First accelerator carbon-14 date for pigment from a rock painting, South African Journal of Science 83: 56–7.Google Scholar
Vinnicombe, P. 1976. People of the Eland. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.Google Scholar
Watchman, A. 1993. Perspectives and potentials for absolute dating prehistoric rock paintings, Antiquity 67: 5865.Google Scholar
Watchman, A. & Cole, N.. 1993. Accelerator radiocarbon dating of plant-fibre binders in rock paintings from northeastern Australia, Antiquity 67: 355–8.Google Scholar
Willcox, A. R. 1956. Rock paintings of the Drakensberg. London: Max Parrish.Google Scholar