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Isaac Feliciano

9 Years Ago

Art History, Cave Paintings And Carbon Dating

What is the earliest known piece of art, cave painting and or relic/historical trace of art?
My memory recalls being taught of The Venus of Willendorf but I also acknowledge cave painting.
Is carbon dating accurate? If so what is the oldest known work of art? (I chose the forum because google can be a limited source of information.)

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CHERYL EMERSON ADAMS

9 Years Ago

The universe.

 

Ronald Walker

9 Years Ago

Think the estimate is somewhere around 30 to 40 thousand years.

 

Rumyana Whitcher

9 Years Ago

Interesting and fascinating topic.

The earliest prehistoric cave paintings from Europe are considered to be found in Altamira cave (French Pyrenees).

Some research sujests that the earliest cave painting have been found in Indonesia.

http://www.livescience.com/48200-oldest-cave-art-indonesia.html

Very well preserved cave paintings, dating from Neolithic period (Bronze age) are known from Magurata cave, Bulgaria, Eastern Europe).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magura_Cave

 

Rudi Prott

9 Years Ago

Don't move Altamira! It is in northern Spain near Santander. Not far from the coast but far away from the Pyrenees. You can not visit the original place but they built a copy of the main part of the cave and a museum nearby. The oldest paintings there are 22,000 years old. I found it very strange that you are not allowed to photograph the copy.

http://en.museodealtamira.mcu.es/Prehistoria_y_Arte/la_cueva.html

The Venus of Willendorf from Austria is around 27,000 years old.

All this is very young compared with this 500,000 years old from Java/indonesia:

http://www.nature.com/news/homo-erectus-made-world-s-oldest-doodle-500-000-years-ago-1.16477


I don't know how carbon dating should work with non organic material ???

 

Rudi Prott

9 Years Ago

In February a new 2 Euro coin with a bull from Altamira was issued.

Sell Art Online

 

Pixel Artist

9 Years Ago

Ajanta Cave painting- The Ajanta Caves in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India are about 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 or 650 CE.The caves include paintings and sculptures described by the government Archaeological Survey of India as "the finest surviving examples of Indian art, particularly painting", which are masterpieces of Buddhist religious art, with figures of the Buddha and depictions of the Jataka tales.

 

Lawrence Supino

9 Years Ago

The Akrotiri/Santorini frescos are the oldest known examples of "landscape" paintings...as opposed to isolated figures on caves without any indication of a setting.

They say the cave art on the Island of Sulawesi in Indonesia are the oldest??



 

Vincent Von Frese

9 Years Ago

I collect prehistoric artifacts made by humans and have axe heads made of stone which archaeologists say is more art than tool.
The earliest known art is in the medium of limestone and marble stone carvings is semi-abstract in appearance and were made in the African/Greek area of the earth. The figures are very much like modern art in that they are symbolic and ceremonial.

Female form in a formal and frontal pose are showing symbolic sexual,organs and others with musical instruments.

Cycladic statues carved in stone are the oldest know and these are presumed to be 3300-2700BCE.

 

Heather Applegate

9 Years Ago

Carbon dating works on organic material (can use it to test the age of organic matter found in the same stratigraphic level) but for older stuff there are many many methods.... fluorine, uranium, lead...etc.

 

Heather Applegate

9 Years Ago

And yeas, it it very accurrate... generally to +/- 50 years. Carbon dating is used mostly for more recent stuff though, I've used it to date back about 20 years at the most I think.

 

Paul Cowan

9 Years Ago

While carbon dating is an accurate technique, there are problems with it, particularly if samples have been contaminated in some way. http://www.arara.org/Radiocarbon_Dating.html

 

Rumyana Whitcher

9 Years Ago

Thanks very much, Rudi for correcting me about the location of Altamira cave.

 

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