Late Palaeolithic cave art and permafrost in the Southern Ural

Shulgan-Tash Cave, located on the western slope of the Ural Mountains and recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, hosts some of the easternmost late Palaeolithic cave art in Europe. A groundbreaking study reveals that these paintings were created during a 21.9 ka-long hiatus in calcite deposition, attributed to regional permafrost conditions and sub-zero temperatures inside the cave during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2. To determine the age of the art, researchers employed detailed 230Th-U dating of calcite flowstone underlying and overgrowing the paintings at 22 sites across three halls of the cave. The youngest age for the underlying calcite suggests a maximum age of 36.4 ± 0.1 ka, while the oldest overlying calcite constrains the minimum age to 14.5 ± 0.04 ka. Additionally, samples of cryogenic cave calcite documented seven episodes of freezing and thawing of permafrost associated with stadials and interstadials of MIS 3, providing further evidence for the cold conditions during which the paintings were made.

Dublyansky, Y., Moseley, G. E., Lyakhnitsky, Y., Cheng, H., Edwards, L. R., Scholz, D., Koltai, G., & Spötl, C. (2018). Late Palaeolithic cave art and permafrost in the Southern Ural. Scientific Reports, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-30049-w