12,000 year old cave painting found in Great Britian

[Philip Deitiker]

I don't know if anyone caught wind of this, I found a blurp
on this in the latest issue of Science, apparently they have
dated this to margin of the current interglacial, lending
weight to the HLA suggestion that at least some groups of
people weathered out the end of the last glacial maximum
north of where the current english channel lies.

[Rich Travsky]

See pics at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/03/sci_nat_oldest_cave_art_in_the_uk/html/1.stm

(note that this is the first of a set of 6, click on next for more)

Story here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,991116,00.html

The shadowy work of Britain's oldest known artist has been rediscovered
after 120 centuries, in a find that turns the history of the country's
first inhabitants upside down.

Specialist detective work in a dank Midlands cave has shattered the
300-year-old belief that no British cave paintings exist, in contrast to
the wealth of stylised animals, birds and tribesmen found on the continent.

"It was an amazing moment when we traced the lines - invisible without
special lighting - and found we were looking at an ibex-like creature,"
said Paul Pettitt of Oxford University, who made the discovery with British
and Spanish colleagues.

"It fills in one of the biggest gaps in Britain's history, and puts an end to
the debate about whether ice age inhabitants had cultural contacts with the
rest of Europe."

The ibex, along with scratched birds and geometrical patterns in Church Hole,
Mother Grundy's Parlour and Robin Hood caves at Creswell Crags in
Nottinghamshire, has been dated to 12,000BC, largely through the "semi-twisted
perspective" style of the unknown artist.
...
"We can date these through the style," said Sergio Ripoli, of Uned University,
Madrid, who has worked on international commissions preserving cave art in
France and Portugal.

He added: "But we also know that we are not dealing with fakers. Graffiti from
the last century is still raw, but the ibex, the birds and the other drawings
have been patinated over time. It is as though the lines of the drawing have
been varnished."
...