Dating without dates: Stylistic and thematic chronologies in the Paleolithic painted caves of Les Bernoux and Saint-Front (Dordogne, France)

Abstract

Establishing the precise chronological age of prehistoric rock art sites is often difficult, especially with regard to the sites of the Early Upper Paleolithic in Europe. Among 106 sites of this period identified in scientific literature, only 11 have been directly dated with the C14 method. At many caves, there are no means of direct dating of the figures themselves or their contexts.Such was the difficulty analyzing the caves Les Bernoux and Saint-Front (Dordogne). Thus, we used a different methodological process: their thematic and stylistic comparisons with figures from clearly-calibrated sites (caves). In this article, we expose the method we follow, using relevé and statistical data, as well as the results we obtain comparing formal attributes of figures with ones from other paleolithic caves.