RADIOCARBON DATING OF FREMONT ANTHROPOMORPHIC ROCK ART IN GLEN CANYON, SOUTH-CENTRAL UTAH

Some measure of chronometric control is essential if the important symbolic content of prehistoric rock art is to be fully exploited for interpretative purposes. The relative stylistic chronologies proposed for rock art in various regions of the world are hypotheses needing to be tested. Two recently-processed radiocarbon dates provide the first chronometric evaluation of the suggested chronology for Fremont anthropomorphic depiction on the northern Colorado Plateau of the North American Southwest. A perishable artifact associated with a large pictograph panel was dated 1200 +/- 80 years b.p., while AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) dating of charcoal pigment of a pictograph from an adjacent site yielded an age of 675 +/- 55 years b.p. These radiocarbon determinations have important implications for the culture history of south-central Utah. The dates come from previously-unrecorded rock art sites that exemplify the elaborate nature of anthropomorph pictographs in the extreme SE portion of the Fremont region.