Temporal Distribution of Rock Art

The geographical distribution of global rock art is thus relatively well established, even though the regional details are often still of poor resolution. Its temporal distribution, however, remains surrounded by uncertainties and controversies. In part this is due to the very limited credible dating work conducted so far, but it is also the result of almost countless unfounded age claims from many parts of the world, and their often specious but strenuous defense. The usually stylistic rock art sequences we have in many world regions are often based on spurious evidence or frivolous notions. To select one example, the chronology of the massive corpus of Saudi Arabian rock art is based on the work of one single scholar who wrote four books about it without ever having set foot in that country. It is based on such evidence as the occurrence of objects shown across the waists of male figures that look much like swords. This author, however, thought that they depict ‘giant toggle-pins’, and since much smaller such objects in Israel were earlier than the late third millennium BC, he considered this observation to date the relevant Saudi petroglyphs. He invented more than 20 styles for southern Arabia, none of which was found to represent a temporal group. Most coexisted in preliterate as well as postliterate times, as shown by thousands of accompanying inscriptions. For one of these styles, even an ethnic Negroid group was invented, on the strength of perceived head shapes. When scientific dating and colorimetric sequencing recently tested this chronological sequence, it was found to be false in almost every detail.

This is not an exceptional case; much the same can be reported from many other regions. Eurasia and the Sahara have been particularly fertile grounds for the invention of styles, traditions, and cultures, and for reifying these constructs by providing them with names, identities, and notional datings. In particular, there has been a tendency to claim Pleistocene antiquities for rock art that is in fact significantly younger. This has commonly occurred across Northern and Central Asia, where at present no confirmed Ice Age rock art is known, as well as in parts of Europe. Ice Age rock art occurs at many sites of southwestern Europe, but it is thought to be far more common in Australia, where favorable environments and a historical absence of iconoclastic traditions have facilitated preservation. All Pleistocene rock art of Australia is of cultures of Middle Palaeolithic technologies, whereas in Europe it all seems to belong to Upper Palaeolithic tool industries. The only exception there is the earliest rock art known in Europe, a series of small cupules (cup marks) found on the underside of a limestone slab placed over the grave of a Neanderthal child, in the French cave La Ferrassie.

The oldest currently known rock art, however, was only recently found in the Indian state Madhya Pradesh (Figure 4). So far, the Acheulian (Lower Palaeolithic) antiquity of about 550 cupules and four engraved lines in two quartzite caves, Auditorium Cave (Bhimbetka) and Daraki-Chattan, has been confirmed by excavation. At the first site, two petroglyphs were encountered in an archaeological excavation; in the second cave, more than 30 had exfoliated from the walls and were recovered in occupation strata, together with numerous hammerstones that had been used in making these markings on the extremely hard rock. Similar petroglyphs at a few other sites in the region may prove to be of comparable age, as may cupules recently found in the Kalahari of South Africa. Remarkably, the oldest known rock art of both Americas, although significantly younger than that found in the three Old World continents, also consists typically of cupules and linear grooves. It may be tempting to see this as an indication of a universal culture of archaic Homo sapiens, expressed also in wide-ranging consistencies in Middle Palaeolithic stone tool typology. However, if the oldest types of rock art, the world over, are also the most deterioration resistant, tapho-nomic reasoning suggests that it is likely that cupules are not the earliest form of rock art produced. They simply had better prospects of survival than more ephemeral forms of art.

Rock art of the Pleistocene remains a very rare phenomenon, always limited to exceptionally favorable preservation conditions. Its surviving instances do, however, increase in number toward the end of the Pleistocene. Present indications of rock art ages suggest a significant increase of quantity during the early to mid-Holocene, perhaps 7000 or 6000 years ago. Large corpora in arid regions begin simultaneously around that time, which is again perhaps a taphonomic phenomenon rather than an indication of cultural practice. In temperate regions, large bodies of surviving rock art first appear by the Neolithic or Bronze Age, where local lithologies are suitable. Finally, in regions of limestone and other less weathering-resistant rock types, rock art at open sites typically begins occurring after 2000 years BP. Therefore the temporal distribution of rock art is universally related to preservation issues, especially those of lithology and climate.