‘Time’, wrote Sir Thomas Browne, ‘which antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared these minor monuments’. The Nile Valley is full of major monuments—pyramids, tombs and temples; each expedition which goes into the Libyan Desert learns that it is well-filled with minor ones and remarkable among these are paintings and gravings on rocks.
During the late Holocene, Aboriginal rock painters in north Queensland selected and combined various natural inorganic and organic materials in paint recipes – possibly to increase the longevity of their paintings. The organic materials make direct radiocarbon dating possible.