guy Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 Interesting find: Traditional Owner Ian Waina inspecting a Naturalistic painting of a kangaroo, determined to be more than 12,000 years old based on the age of overlying mud wasp nests Quote Researchers in western Australia have been working to date all ancient cave art They are using a technique that involves radiocarbon dating mud wasp nests The nests overhang the ancient pieces of art painted to the sides of caves The 2m drawing of a kangaroo was dated to between 17,500 and 17,100 years old https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9286281/Life-size-drawing-KANGAROO-dating-17-500-years-Australia.html Summary: The interesting feature of this article was the use of wasp nets to determine the age of ancient artwork: Quote Researchers found that charcoal incorporated into mud wasp nests could be used to identify the age of ancient artworks. This is because the nests have a non-trivial inherited or inbuilt age at the time of construction. They are made from the same materials and surrounding rocks likely used in making the artwork. Samples from the nests undergo radiocarbon dating to determine how old the material used is, and then corrected for the inbuilt age of the nest itself. This allows the researchers to calculate a rough age for the art based on materials in nearby nests. guy also known as gaius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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