Rock art is a vital archaeological source to study and analyse the cognitive evolution of the human intellect across the world. The importance of rock art and its dating has long been a key issue of rock-art research and continues to be attended by difficulties about methodology, misinterpretation of findings and overconfidence in the reliability or precision of results. Most of the rock-art researchers’ primary focus in their investigations for rock-art dating at present has been to establish chronologies of different rock-art sites.
The present volume mainly emphasis on long due and much discussed issues like that of what will be the suitable dating techniques for Indian rock art. Some of the topics in the volume cover different dating methods such as the minimum dating by archaeological excavation, radiocarbon analyses of mineral accretions or their inclusions, radiocarbon analyses of paint residues or their inclusions, geomorphological methods, minimum or maximum ages derived from biological accretions, lichenometry, colorimetry of patinae, radiocarbon analyses of charcoal and beeswax figures, and any other methods of “direct” dating of rock art. This volume includes not only new insights but also new dating results. The data and interpretations put forward by various scholars are comprehensive and analytical. Most of their views are appropriate and hold promise in terms of recent trends in dating rock art.