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So, today, walking through the park, I noticed children drawing flowers and smiley faces on the pavement with chalk. Who would have thought this activity was 45,000 years old! What was I talking about? About cave paintings.
Everyone immediately imagines scenes from Ice Age (by the way, the drawings there date back to the Upper Paleolithic period and are between 12,000 and 35,000 years old). How could this be determined?
The most common method is radiocarbon dating. When an organic being dies, it stops absorbing carbon-14 from the environment. Over time, it decays into nitrogen. For example, after 5,730 years, about half of the carbon-14 remains.
Scientists measure how much of it remains on the "wall" and use this to calculate the painting's age. However, this method only works if the paint actually contains organic material, such as charcoal.