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Mid-Holocene Age Obtained For Nested Diamond Pattern Petroglyph In The Billasurgam Cave Complex, Kurnool District, Southern India, Paul S.C Tacon, Nicole Boivin, Michael Petraglia, James Blinkhorn, Allan Chivas, Richard G. Roberts, David Fink, Thomas Higham, Peter Ditchfield, Ravi Korisettar, Jian-Xin Zhao

Richard G Roberts

India has one of the world's largest and most significant bodies of rock paintings and engravings, yet not a single rock art site or image has been directly and accurately dated using radiometric techniques. Here we report on results from the Billasurgam Cave complex near Kurnool in southern India. Although this cave complex has been investigated archaeologically since the late 1800s, it was not until 2008 that a large petroglyph, consisting of the remains of three nested diamond designs on a stalactite, was noted. In order to determine if this petroglyph had been made recently, flowstone was sampled from on …