Dating painting events through by-products of ochre processing: Borologa 1 Rockshelter, Kimberley, Australia

David, Bruno; Delannoy, Jean Jacques; Petchey, Fiona; Gunn, Robert George; Huntley, Jillian; Veth, Peter; Genuite, Kim; Skelly, Robert; Mialanes, Jerome; Harper, Sam; Ouzman, Sven; Heaney, Pauline; Wong, Vanessa Nl

doi:10.1080/03122417.2019.1603263

Cited by 19 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Although broken in situ, it is not heavily oxidized; nor is the surrounding sediment. Hearth-capping with flat sandstone slabs was also observed on Late Holocene hearths at Borologa 1 in the North Kimberly, a behaviour described as 'a distinctive act of hearth treatment' ( [22]: 76). Hearth abandonment at Gunu Rock was followed by an additional 20 cm of sand deposition to the modern ground surface.…”

Section: Gunu Rockmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Although the relative stylistic sequence of the Kimberley rock art assemblage is generally accepted [15,22,30,46], the degree of overlap between styles requires additional refinement and the chronology of the earlier styles remains problematic [22,44,47,48]. In addition, many motifs cannot be securely attributed to an identifiable stylistic period.…”

Section: Rock Art In the Gunu Site Complexmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Much of the Northwest Kimberley is also extremely rugged with few roads or tracks, seriously limiting access and posing significant logistic difficulties to archaeological research. Kimberley excavation programs have targeted the more accessible South Kimberley (e.g., [20]), or localities in the North or East Kimberley with coastal or road access (e.g., [21][22][23][24][25][26]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, grinding stones from western North America have similarly low CoV values, ranging from 0.17-0.22 (Table 1 in [61]). Given the profile and small size of the convex grinding surfaces, the Gunu artefacts are probably top stones rather than bottom stones (see also [22]). One small fragment of a flat-profile grinding stone-possibly a bottom stone-was recovered from the late phase deposits at Gunu Rock, and extensive flat and concave grinding patches are present on horizontal bedrock surfaces in Gunu Cave (Fig 4A).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Archaeology and art in context: Excavations at the Gunu Site Complex, Northwest Kimberley, Western Australia

et al. 2020

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The Kimberley region of Western Australia is one of the largest and most diverse rock art provenances in the world, with a complex stylistic sequence spanning at least 16 ka, culminating in the modern art-making of the Wunumbal people. The Gunu Site Complex, in the remote Mitchell River region of the northwest Kimberley, is one of many local expressions of the Kimberley rock art sequence. Here we report excavations at two sites in this complex: Gunu Rock, a sand sheet adjacent to rock art panels; and Gunu Cave, a floor deposit within an extensive rockshelter. Excavations at Gunu Rock provide evidence for two phases of occupation, the first from 7-8 to 2.7 ka, and the second from 1064 cal BP. Excavations at Gunu Rock provide evidence for occupation from the end of the second phase to the recent past. Stone for tools in the early phase were procured from a variety of sources, but quartz crystal reduction dominated the second occupation phase. Small quartz crystals were reduced by freehand percussion to provide small flake tools and blanks for manufacturing small points called nguni by the Wunambal people today. Quartz crystals were prominent in historic ritual practices associated with the Wanjina belief system. Complex methods of making bifacially-thinned and pressure flaked quartzite projectile points emerged after 2.7 ka. Ochre pigments were common in both occupation phases, but evidence for occupation contemporaneous with the putative age of the oldest rock art styles was not discovered in the excavations. Our results show that developing a complete understanding of rock art production and local occupation patterns requires paired excavations inside and outside of the rockshelters that dominate the Kimberley.

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Section: Gunu Rockmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Rock Art In the Gunu Site Complexmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Archaeology and art in context: Excavations at the Gunu Site Complex, Northwest Kimberley, Western Australia

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“…The research of diachronic processes of production and transformation of rock art panels is a worldwide problem that raises intriguing challenges to approach the elucidation and identification of different painting events [1][2][3][4][5][6]. In last decades, archaeometric studies have been a powerful tool to understand the materials employed in paintings [4,[7][8][9][10][11] as well as the natural and/or anthropic phenomena that affect them throughout time [12][13][14][15][16][17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking for Painting Mixtures to Glimpse Pictorial Techniques: A Micro-Stratigraphic Physicochemical Approach to the Rock Art From the Oyola’s Caves (Argentina)

Gheco

Tascón

Eugenia

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Could not be possible that rock paintings with similar hues and morphologies were the results of different painting events inside a cave but distanced in time? Is there any archaeometric approach that allows us to evidence these subtle differences? Aiming to address these inquires, in this work are presented the potentials of new physicochemical lines of evidence for characterization and differentiation of painting mixtures. This will improve the understanding of the technical heterogeneity and temporal complexity of painting sets executed in a particular archaeological site. In order to explore these points, the results obtained in the micro-stratigraphic studies of samples taken from the painted walls of Oyola, an archaeological site situated in the northwest of Argentina, are presented. These samples have been analyzed by micro-Raman spectroscopy (mRS) and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray (SEM-EDS). The differences found by cross-section chemical studies could be explained as a consequence of two situations: 1- differences in the painting’s chemical components, either in the pigments involved or additives used; and, 2- differences in the physical properties of the mixtures such as stratum thickness and/or particle size. Also, in this article is explained each of the hypothesis, presenting the limits of these interpretations and pointing out future research challenges. As we discussed, it could be possible that the chemical and physical differences found between painting mixtures were the material expression of varied types of pictorial techniques.

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The Bayesian Inferential Paradigm in Archaeology

Otárola‐Castillo¹,

Torquato²,

Buck³

2023

Handbook of Archaeological Sciences

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Dating painting events through by-products of ochre processing: Borologa 1 Rockshelter, Kimberley, Australia

Cited by 19 publications

References 21 publications

Archaeology and art in context: Excavations at the Gunu Site Complex, Northwest Kimberley, Western Australia

Archaeology and art in context: Excavations at the Gunu Site Complex, Northwest Kimberley, Western Australia

Looking for Painting Mixtures to Glimpse Pictorial Techniques: A Micro-Stratigraphic Physicochemical Approach to the Rock Art From the Oyola’s Caves (Argentina)

The Bayesian Inferential Paradigm in Archaeology

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