Oldest Rock Art in NA

[CMD]

10,500-14,800 years old. Nevada. Notice the rock covered in "cupules" on the right section of the outcrop. Cupules are a common design element in rock art sites around the globe...

http://phys.org/news/2013-08-date-oldest-petroglyphs-north-america.html

Cupules:

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/cupules.htm

"Indeed, the oldest art on every populated continent consists of linear grooves and cupules. It dates from as early as the Lower Paleolithic era, and therefore pre-dates the more celebrated Gravettian and Magdalenian cave painting by hundreds of millennia."
Fascinating that the oldest rock art found in NA includes a panel covered in cupules.

[Ron Kelley]

Thanks Charlie, Interesting read. That must have taken a lot of hours to carve all those.
Ron

[CMD]

Interesting study of cupules:

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~auranet/cognit/shared_files/cupules.pdf

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~auranet/aura/shared_files/Cupules.pdf

Cupules on the Columbia River:

http://culturewatchnorthwest.blogspot.com/2009/10/cupules-on-columbia.html

[CMD]

Here's the only close up I could find so far. Guess I would need to see the original report. On another forum, someone suggested these researchers were simply playing some kind of game to find the "oldest", but their dating method seemed fine to me, I don't see anything phony about their discovery. Probably could have left out "oldest", that's a headline word and there may be older out there. Personally, I think a panel from the Paleo era is a big deal in petroglyph studies.

[punisher]

What do you guys think the age is on the coral, and fossil rocks found?  I find them in the woods near caves all the time.  It blows me away.
  :evil:

[CMD]

punisher wrote:

What do you guys think the age is on the coral, and fossil rocks found?  I find them in the woods near caves all the time.  It blows me away.
  :evil:

  We have a couple of very knowledgable fossil collectors here. painshill(Roger) from England can ID for you when he returns from vacation end of month. Jessie from Texas might know your fossils. He collects a lot of marine fossils. In general, though, I can at least tell you measure the age in hundreds of millions of years old, perhaps the Devonian Period, roughly 420-360 million years ago:

http://www.uky.edu/KGS/fossils/devonian.htm