Hostname: page-component-5d84bcc8dc-z5cqj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-08-12T06:10:02.385Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Digital imaging and prehistoric imagery: a new analysis of the Folkton Drums

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2015

Andrew Meirion Jones ,
Andrew Cochrane ,
Chris Carter ,
Ian Dawson ,
Marta Díaz-Guardamino ,
Eleni Kotoula  and
Louisa Minkin
Andrew Meirion Jones
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Avenue Campus, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BF, UK (Email: amj@soton.ac.uk)
Andrew Cochrane
Affiliation:
School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University, John Percival Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK
Chris Carter
Affiliation:
Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, Park Avenue, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 8DL, UK
Ian Dawson
Affiliation:
Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, Park Avenue, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 8DL, UK
Marta Díaz-Guardamino
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Avenue Campus, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BF, UK (Email: amj@soton.ac.uk)
Eleni Kotoula
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Avenue Campus, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BF, UK (Email: amj@soton.ac.uk)
Louisa Minkin
Affiliation:
Central St. Martins, University of the Arts London, Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, King's Cross, London N1C 4AA, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Folkton ‘Drums’ constitute three of the most remarkable decorated objects from Neolithic Britain. New analysis using Reflectance Transformation Imaging and photogrammetry has revealed evidence for previously unrecorded motifs, erasure and reworking. Hence these chalk drums were not decorated according to a single, pre-ordained scheme, but were successively carved and recarved over time. Such practices may have been widespread in the making of artefacts in Neolithic Britain. The study of these drums also demonstrates the ability of these new techniques not only to record visible motifs, but to document erased and reworked motifs clearly.

Keywords

North YorkshireUKNeolithicerasureexperimentationreworkingReflectance Transformation Imagingphotogrammetry

Information

Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 89 , Issue 347 , October 2015 , pp. 1083 - 1095
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ashmore, P. 1986. Neolithic carvings in Maes Howe. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 116: 57–62.Google Scholar
Barber, M., Field, D. & Topping, P.. 1999. The Neolithic flint mines of England. Swindon: English Heritage.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. 1997. Rock art and the prehistory of Atlantic Europe. Signing the land. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bradley, R., Phillips, T., Richards, C. & Webb, M.. 2001. Decorating the houses of the dead: incised and pecked motifs in Orkney chambered tombs. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 11: 45–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0959774301000038 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, P. & Chappell, G.. 2005. Prehistoric rock art in the North York Moors. Stroud: Tempus.Google Scholar
Cochrane, A. 2009. Additive subtraction: addressing pick-dressing in Irish passage tombs, in Thomas, J. & Jorge, V. Oliveira (ed.) Archaeology and the politics of vision in a post-modern context: 163–85. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Cochrane, A. & Jones, A.M.. 2012. Visualising the Neolithic. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Conkey, M. & Hastorf, C.. 1990. The uses of style in archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cultural Heritage Imaging n.d. Available at: http://culturalheritageimaging.org (accessed 09 July 2015).Google Scholar
Darvill, T., O’Connor, B., Cheetham, P., Constant, V., Nunn, R. & Welham, K.. 2005. The Cronk yn How stone and the rock art of the Isle of Man. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 71: 283–331. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0079497'00001043 Google Scholar
Dawson, I. 2012. Making contemporary sculpture. Marlborough: Crowood.Google Scholar
Díaz-Guardamino, M. & Wheatley, D.. 2013. Rock art and digital technologies: the application of Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) and 3D laser scanning to the study of Late Bronze Age Iberian stelae. MENGA. Journal of Andalusian Prehistory 4: 187–203.Google Scholar
Domingo Sanz, I., Fiore, D. & May, S.K.. 2009. The archaeologies of art: time, place and identity in rock art, portable art and body art, in Sanz, I. Domingo, Fiore, D. & May, S.K. (ed.) Archaeologies of art: 15–28. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast.Google Scholar
Earl, G., Martinez, K. & Malzbender, T.. 2010. Archaeological applications of polynomial texture mapping: analysis, conservation and representation. Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 2040–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.03.009 Google Scholar
Eogan, G. 1997. Overlays and underlays: aspects of megalithic art succession at Brugh na Boinne, Ireland. Brigantium 10: 217–34.Google Scholar
Gibson, A. & Bayliss, A.. 2010. Recent work on the Neolithic round barrows of the upper Great Wold valley, Yorkshire, in Leary, J., Darvill, T. & Field, D. (ed.) Round mounds and monumentality in the British Neolithic and beyond: 72–107. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Greenwell, W. 1890. Recent researches in barrows in Yorkshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire etc . Archaeologia 52: 1–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0261340900007451 Google Scholar
Harding, P. 1988. The chalk plaque pit, Amesbury. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 54: 320–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0079497'00005880 Google Scholar
Ingold, T. 2013. Making: anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jones, A.M. 2004. By way of illustration: art, memory and materiality in the Irish Sea and beyond, in Cummings, V. & Fowler, C. (ed.) The Neolithic of the Irish Sea: materiality and traditions of practice: 202–13. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Jones, A.M. 2012. Prehistoric materialities. Becoming material in prehistoric Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kinnes, I.A. & Longworth, I.. 1985. Catalogue of the excavated prehistoric and Romano-British material in the Greenwell Collection. London: British Museum.Google Scholar
Longworth, I. 1999. The Folkton Drums unpicked, in Cleal, R. & MacSween, A. (ed.) Grooved Ware in Britain and Ireland: 83–88. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Loveday, R. & Barclay, A.. 2010. “One of the most interesting barrows ever examined”—Liffs Low revisited, in Leary, J., Darvill, T. & Field, D. (ed.) Round mounds and monumentality in the British Neolithic and beyond: 108–129. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Loveday, R., Gibson, A., Marshall, P.D., Bayliss, A., Bronk Ramsey, C. & van der Plicht, H.. 2007. The antler macehead dating project. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 73: 381–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0079497'00027341 Google Scholar
Lyon, C. 2004. Viewing polynomial texture maps using Java. Harvard Extension School 4–12. Available at: http://materialobjects.com/ptm/overview.pdf (accessed 09 July 2015).Google Scholar
Malzbender, T., Gelb, D. & Wolters, H.. 2001. Polynomial texture maps. Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH ‘01): 519–28. New York: ACM. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/383259.383320 Google Scholar
Malzbender, T., Gelb, D., Wolters, H. & Zuckerman, B.. 2004. Enhancement of shape perception by Surface Reflectance Transformation. Proceedings of Vision, Modeling, and Visualization 2004, November 16–18, 2004, Stanford, USA. Amsterdam: IOS Press.Google Scholar
Marshall, D. 1977. Carved stone balls. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 108: 40–72.Google Scholar
McFadyen, L. 2007. Neolithic architecture and participation: practices of making at long barrow sites in southern Britain, in Last, J. (ed.) Beyond the grave: new perspectives on barrows: 22–29. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Miles, J., Pitts, M., Pagi, H. & Earl, G.. 2014. New applications of photogrammetry and Reflectance Transformation Imaging to an Easter Island statue. Antiquity 88: 596–605. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003598'00101206 Google Scholar
Mudge, M., Voutaz, J.P., Schroer, C. & Lum, M.. 2005. Reflection Transformation Imaging and virtual representations of coins from the hospice of the Grand St Bernard, in Mudge, M., Ryan, N. & Scopigno, R. (ed.) VAST 2005: The 6th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Intelligent Cultural Heritage, Pisa, Italy, 2005: 195–202. Goslar, Germany: Eurographics Association.Google Scholar
Mudge, M., Malzbender, T., Schroer, C. & Lum, M.. 2006. New Reflection Transformation Imaging methods for rock art and multiple-viewpoint display, in Ioannides, M., Arnold, D.B., Niccolucci, F. & Mania, K. (ed.) VAST 2006: The 7th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Intelligent Cultural Heritage, Nicosia, Cyprus, 2006. Proceedings: 195–202. Goslar, Germany: Eurographics Association.Google Scholar
O’Sullivan, M. 1986. Approaches to passage tomb art. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 116: 68–83.Google Scholar
O’Sullivan, M. 1996. Megalithic art in Ireland and Brittany: divergence or convergence?, in L’Helgouach, J., Le Roux, C.-T. & Lecornce, J. (ed.) Art et symboles du mégalithisme Européen (Supplement 8): 81–96. Rennes: Revue Archéologique de l’Ouest.Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, M. 2012 Stonehenge. Exploring the greatest Stone Age mystery. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Richards, C. 2013. Building the great stone circles of the north. Oxford: Windgather.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roe, F. 1968. Stone mace-heads and the latest Neolithic cultures of the British Isles, in Coles, J.M. & Simpson, D.D.A. (ed.) Studies in ancient Europe: 145–72. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Salonia, P., Scolastico, S., Pozzi, A., Marcolongo, A. & Messina, T.L.. 2009. Multiscale cultural heritage survey: quick digital photogrammetric systems. Journal of Cultural Heritage 10: e59–e64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2009.09.004 Google Scholar
Teather, A. 2010. Mining and materiality in the British Neolithic. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Sheffield.Google Scholar
Teather, A. 2011. Interpreting hidden chalk art in southern British Neolithic flint mines. World Archaeology 43: 230–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2011.579496 Google Scholar
Varndell, G. 1999. An engraved chalk plaque from Hanging Cliff, Kilham. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 18: 351–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0092.00089 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yilmaz, H.M., Yakar, M., Gulec, S.A. & Dulgerler, O.N.. 2007. Importance of digital close-range photogrammetry in documentation of cultural heritage. Journal of Cultural Heritage 8: 428–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2007.07.004 Google Scholar