VISITING PALAEOLITHIC ART – EXPLORATIONS AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS IN CUEVA DE LAS MONEDAS, SPAIN

Abstract

Numerical chronology is one of the main sources of information by which one may contextualize prehistoric human activity more precisely. It is able to discriminate between different times of visits to caves and determine the period with which each form of evidence should be associated and the relationships between them. The application of conventional 14C and 14C-AMS has dated visits to the Palaeolithic cave art site of Las Monedas during historical times. The results underscore the caution that is needed when dating a cave art ensemble based on an undated archaeological context or attributing all the graphic activity to a single time.