Digital Imaging and Prehistoric Imagery: a new analysis of the Folkton Drums

The Folkton ‘Drums’ are the most remarkable decorated artefacts from Neolithic Britain. A new analysis using Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) and photogrammetry (PG) reveals new evidence for previously unrecorded motifs in addition to plentiful evidence for erasure and reworking. A case is made for understanding the decoration of these chalk artefacts as an ongoing process of working involving experimentation. The authors also argue that such practices of making may have been more widespread in Neolithic Britain and Ireland. Additionally the study demonstrates the ability of these new techniques to not only record visible motifs, but to clearly document erased and reworked motifs.

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