QUÉBEC, CANADA—According to a report in The International Business Times, San rock art in southern Africa has been directly dated with a technique known as accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating. This method uses a much smaller sample than traditional radiocarbon dating, and thus causes less damage to the artwork. Adelphine Bonneau of Laval University explained that the study tested rock art at 14 sites located in southeastern Botswana, western Lesotho, and South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. The team members were careful to avoid paintings made with charcoal, which could have been much older than the image itself, and to remove radiocarbon contaminants from the samples. The oldest of the paintings in the study came from Botswana and was dated to between 5,723 and 4,420 years ago. “These dates are only the beginning of these investigations, but they open up the possibility of initiating a dialogue between the art of the San and their archaeological remains,” Bonneau said. “Since the rock art reflected their spiritual world, we may get new insights on their society and the cultural and spiritual connections they shared with other tribes.” To read more about rock art, go to “The First Artists.”