Dating correlated microlayers in oxalate accretions from rock art shelters: New archives of paleoenvironments and human activity

Oxalate-rich mineral accretions, often found in rock shelters around the world, offer important opportunities for radiocarbon dating of associated rock art. Here, sample characterization and chemical pretreatment techniques are used to characterize the accretions, prescreen for evidence of open-system behavior, and address potential contamination. The results provide stratigraphically consistent sequences of radiocarbon dates in millimeter-scale laminated accretions, demonstrating their reliability for dating rock art, particularly symbolic markings commonly engraved into these relatively soft deposits. The age sequences are also consistent with correlations between distinctive patterns in the layer sequences visible in shelters up to 90 km apart in the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia, suggesting their synchronized formation is not entirely shelter specific but broadly controlled by variations in regional environmental conditions. Consequently, these accretions also offer potential as paleoenvironmental archives, with radiocarbon dating of layers in nine accretions indicating four, approximately synchronous growth intervals covering the past 43 ka.

Automated summary

The study demonstrates that oxalate-rich mineral accretions found in rock shelters can be used for radiocarbon dating of rock art, reliably determining the age of the art as well as serving as potential sources for paleoenvironmental archives. Results from the Kimberley region show that the synchronous formation of these accretions is broadly controlled by variations in regional environmental conditions.