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European Art: the Palaeolithic Legacy?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

Robert G. Bednarik
Robert G. Bednarik
Affiliation:
Office of the IFRAO ConvenerAustralian Rock Art Research AssociationP.O. Box 216 Caulfield South, Victoria 3162, Australia
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Abstract

The recent discovery of open-air rock engravings in the Côa valley of northern Portugal has been followed by a vigorous debate over their true age. On grounds of style and of stylistic parallels, many rock art specialists attribute the Côa engravings (and similar carvings at a handful of other sites in Iberia and southern France) to the Upper Palaeolithic, contemporary with the more famous cave art ofLascaux and elsewhere. Attempts so far to date the Côa engravings by scientific techniques have produced relatively recent age estimates for this art. Robert Bednarik has been among the strongest proponents of such a recent date, and in this noe he seeks to explain how the Côa art could be Holocene, or even late Holocene, yet still bear striking stylistic resemblance to carvings or other representations of known Palaeolithic age. In the spirit of the debate, we have invited three rock art experts to comment on Bednarik's theory of artistic continuity, and have appended his own reply to these responses.

Type
Articles
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , October 1997 , pp. 255 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 1997

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