Andrew Cochrane

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

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.

Interface I: Day of the Figurines

On 15 December 2007, IRAC intervened in the meeting of the Theoretical Archaeology Group at The Kings Manor, University of York. One hundred-fifty replica Cycladic figurines were placed in the building and its grounds. In the days that followed, some figurines were moved, some destroyed, some stolen, some collected, and some disappeared completely. Few were recorded and documented.