Students of rock art and cave painting have long lamented the difficulties of estimating dates. With carbon 14 dating you need an organic component in order to date the image, and if there is no black charcoal in the image the pigment cannot be dated. Some paints have organic binders which can be dated sometimes, but organic binders usually do not last as long as inorganic pigments.
One cave in France with Paleolithic cave art that we have wanted to date is Font-de-gaume. “Font-de-Gaume is one of many caves designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Dordogne region of France. Because of the historical significance of the cave art, touching the walls of Font-de-Gaume is forbidden. The only exception is for collecting a sample to conduct radiocarbon dating, as the analytical technique intrinsically requires some physical material.” (Samuels 2026)
The cave of Font-de-Gaume in France has many paintings, but it has always been assumed that the black pigment was a manganese and/or iron mineral and, as such, could not be dated with radiocarbon dating. “Radiocarbon dating works by measuring carbon-14, a radioactive form of carbon that gradually disappears after an organism dies. Because charcoal is made from burned organic material, it can often be dated using this method. Mineral pigments, however, usually contain no carbon and therefore cannot be analyzed in the same way. Researchers had long believed that many black paintings in the region were made entirely from iron and manganese oxides. These naturally occurring minerals can produce dark pigments, but they do not contain the organic carbon needed for radiocarbon dating.” (CNRS 2026) A recent study, however, disproved this assumption.
In a recent study it was proven that there is indeed charcoal in some of the black paint in Font-de-Gaume. “To carry out this verification, the scientists examined the chemical composition of two black drawings, depicting a bison and a mask, using Raman microspectrometry and hyperspectral imaging . These noninvasive methods revealed traces of charcoal in the black pigments.” (Landurant 2026)
Knowing that a portion of the black paint provided a means for Carbon-14 dating, the researchers received permission to remove samples for testing. “Ina Reiche, a research chemist at the French National Center for Scientific Research led the team that removed tiny samples of charcoal for dating. They also added reflectance imaging spectroscopy (RIS) to their repertoire. The method essentially combines imaging and spectroscopy, and might be ‘even better with respect to what we did before,’ Reiche says. The scientists collected four tiny pigment samples one from the bison and three from the mask. The team then used accelerator mass spectrometry to determine the concentration of carbon-14 in each sample and calculated the ages. Three of the four samples date to the Paleolithic era, but the left eye of the mask was markedly younger. Reiche says that it’s clear the left eye contains younger carbon but impossible to know if it came from purposeful retouching, accidental contamination, or more recent graffiti.” (Samuels 2026) This newer date, however, is a sport and not relevant to our purposes.
After the collection and processing of the samples the results turned out to be truly exciting. “Collecting micro-samples was authorized on an exceptional basis for carbon 14 dating. Although this dating is challenging given the tiny amount of material, analyses confirmed a date in the Upper Paleolithic, slightly more recent than previously estimated: the bison was painted between 13,461 and 13,162 calBP, while different parts of the mask were painted between 8,993 and 8,590 calBP, 15,981 and 15,121 calBP, and between 15,297 and 14,246 calBP.” (Landurant 2026) This procedure opens up possibilities for other locations as well. Being able to identify carbon in black painted images will provide a powerful new tool in cave art analysis.
REFERENCES:
CNRS, 2026, Hidden charcoal reveals the true age of ancient cave paintings, ScienceDaily, 28 July 2026, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260727214619.htm.
Landurant, Manon, 2026, First absolute dating of Paleolithic paintings in the Dordogne, 10 March 2026, phys.org (online). Accessed 10 March 2026.
Samuels, Fionna, 2026, First radiocarbon dating of ancient art in France’s Dordogne caverns, 10 March 2026, https://cen.acs.org. Accessed online 10 March 2026.
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