How is Rock Art aged?

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tiompan T
tiompan Dec 19, 2012 18:50:54
Replying to Sanctuary

Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Emma A wrote:
OK so how do you do it? I imagine using a spherical stone (quartz?) cupped in the hand and grinding it against the "canvas", twisting the wrist. To make a straight line, you'd use a sawing action which seems much easier and less strenuous to me!
yep , easier with a pointed stone , quartz works bt as long as the engraving stone is harder the surface geology , it takes about 10 minutes for an average cup .
What even in granite George?
Granite would take longer but it is not used too often .It does tend have lots of natural cup like holes that could help as a start i.e. they that just get enhanced . Although granite on granite would work with nothing to enhance ,just take longer , the more complex motifs are usually avoided too .

S Sanctuary
Sanctuary Dec 19, 2012 18:58:45
Replying to tiompan

tiompan wrote:
Granite would take longer but it is not used too often .It does tend have lots of natural cup like holes that could help as a start i.e. they that just get enhanced . Although granite on granite would work with nothing to enhance ,just take longer , the more complex motifs are usually avoided too .
Funnily enough that's a point (no pun intended!) I was going to raise, the use of a natural cup like hole to start it off. If they did and there was more than one, the 'pattern' produced would have been random and may not have been important to them, just the cupmarks themselves. Does that tell us anything other than the obvious?