ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the ethnographically informed interpretation and formal stratigraphic recording of the 'Great Murals' within Cueva de El Raton, central Baja California, north-western Mexico. Albeit precise, the use of advanced technology does not automatically ensure accuracy. Precision concerns uncertainty in measurement, whereas accuracy concerns uncertainty in what is being measured. A strictly scientistic approach, emphasising precision and cutting-edge technology to the exclusion of almost everything else, tends to ignore other, ostensibly 'less precise', avenues of investigation. Even though advanced sample preparation and careful AMS procedures and instrumentation typically ensure high precision, error tends to be introduced when small samples are collected in the field or through contamination. At this stage of research we can confidently state that within El Raton there are at least two painting episodes: an early geometric one followed by representational paintings.
