Geology Commons^™

Age Of Barrier Canyon-Style Rock Art Constrained By Cross-Cutting Relations And Luminescence Dating Techniques, Joel L. Pederson, Harriet Cornachione, Steven R. Simms, Reza Sohbati, Tammy M. Rittenour, Andrew S. Murray, Gary Cox

Geosciences Faculty Publications

Rock art compels interest from both researchers and a broader public, inspiring many hypotheses about its cultural origin and meaning, but it is notoriously difficult to date numerically. Barrier Canyon-style (BCS) pictographs of the Colorado Plateau are among the most debated examples; hypotheses about its age span the entire Holocene epoch and previous attempts at direct radiocarbon dating have failed. We provide multiple age constraints through the use of cross-cutting relations and new and broadly applicable approaches in optically stimulated luminescence dating at the Great Gallery panel, the type section of BCS art in Canyonlands National Park, southeastern Utah. Alluvial …