Level 1 — Absolute Beginner
Font-de-Gaume is a cave in France. People painted pictures on its walls a very long time ago.
People found the cave more than 100 years ago. But nobody could say exactly how old the paintings were.
Scientists thought the black paint had no carbon in it. This meant they could not use a common dating method on it.
New tests found hidden pieces of charcoal inside the black paint. Now scientists know one painting of a bison is about 13,000 years old.
- cave
- a large natural hole in rock, often underground
- paint
- colored liquid used to make pictures or cover surfaces
- found
- discovered something after searching
- exactly
- precisely, with no difference at all
- charcoal
- a black material made from burned wood
- hidden
- not able to be seen easily
- bison
- a large wild animal similar to a buffalo
- years old
- the age of something, measured in years
Level 2 — Elementary
Scientists in France have precisely dated a prehistoric painting inside Font-de-Gaume, a decorated cave in the Dordogne region, for the first time since it was discovered in 1901.
For over a century, researchers assumed the cave's black pigments were made only from minerals, which cannot be dated using radiocarbon methods that rely on carbon from once-living material.
A new, noninvasive imaging technique revealed that the black paint actually contains hidden charcoal, meaning it did come from burned organic material after all.
Using this discovery, researchers took tiny samples from two paintings, a bison and a mask-like human or animal face, and found that the bison was painted about 13,000 years ago, while sections of the mask were created thousands of years apart.
- precisely
- in an exact and accurate way
- decorated
- made more attractive by adding art or ornamentation
- assumed
- believed something to be true without checking it
- mineral
- a natural, non-living solid substance found in rock or soil
- noninvasive
- not requiring damage to or removal from the object being studied
- organic
- relating to or coming from living things
- sample
- a small amount taken to represent or test something larger
- sections
- distinct parts of something larger
Level 3 — Intermediate
For more than a century after its discovery in 1901, the spectacular Paleolithic cave art of Font-de-Gaume, in France's Dordogne region, resisted a basic question that archaeologists had long wanted answered: exactly how old are the paintings?
The obstacle was methodological. Radiocarbon dating relies on measuring carbon from once-living organic material, and researchers had long assumed the cave's black pigments were composed purely of manganese or other minerals, rendering them chemically invisible to this technique.
That assumption was overturned when noninvasive imaging revealed traces of charcoal embedded within pigments once thought to be entirely mineral, opening a path to direct dating that had previously seemed impossible.
Granted rare permission to extract microsamples from two figures, a bison and a composite human or animal face, researchers determined that the bison was painted roughly 13,000 years ago, while distinct sections of the mask were executed during separate periods separated by thousands of years, published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- Paleolithic
- relating to the early phase of the Stone Age, marked by primitive stone tools
- methodological
- relating to the methods or techniques used in an investigation
- manganese
- a hard, brittle metallic element sometimes used as a mineral pigment
- rendering
- causing something to become a certain way
- embedded
- fixed firmly and deeply within a surrounding substance
- microsample
- an extremely small sample taken for scientific analysis
- composite
- made up of several distinct parts combined together
- executed
- carried out or performed, such as a work of art
Level 4 — Advanced
For more than a century following its 1901 discovery, the celebrated Paleolithic cave art of Font-de-Gaume, nestled in France's Dordogne region, resisted a deceptively basic question archaeologists had long sought to resolve: precisely how old are these paintings?
The obstacle was fundamentally methodological rather than merely technical: radiocarbon dating depends on measuring residual carbon in once-living organic matter, and researchers had for generations assumed the cave's black pigments were composed exclusively of manganese or comparable minerals, rendering them chemically inert to this dating technique.
That long-standing assumption was overturned when noninvasive imaging disclosed traces of charcoal embedded within pigments previously believed to be wholly mineral, unlocking a pathway to direct dating that had until then seemed methodologically foreclosed.
Granted exceptional permission to extract microsamples from two figures, a bison and a composite human or zoomorphic mask, researchers established that the bison was rendered roughly 13,000 years ago, while discrete sections of the mask were executed across separate epochs millennia apart, a finding published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that stands to reshape how Paleolithic art is chronologically studied more broadly.
- deceptively
- in a way that gives a false or misleading impression
- residual
- remaining after most of something has been removed or used
- inert
- chemically inactive or unable to react
- disclosed
- revealed information that was previously hidden
- foreclosed
- prevented or ruled out in advance
- zoomorphic
- having or representing an animal form
- epoch
- a distinct period of time in history
- chronologically
- arranged according to the order of time
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