Marta Díaz-Guardamino

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.

Shaping Social Identities in Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Western Iberia: The Role of Funerary Practices, Stelae, and Statue-Menhirs

This paper assesses the applicability of modern notions of gender identity and individuality, and examines ‘relationality’ as a key dimension structuring social identity during the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age in western Iberia through a focus on funerary practices and stelae- and statue-menhir-making. It is argued that these practices were involved in the recollection of genealogical and mythical pasts. They entailed the creation of the dead and the ancestors as relational entities through the explicit inscription of graphic and spatial relations. Ultimately, these practices were structured by, and structured, shared understandings of the self and the roles of the deceased and the ancestors in social life—understandings in which ‘relationality’ played a seminal role.

From artefact biographies to ‘multiple objects’: a new analysis of the decorated plaques of the Irish Sea Region

The concept of artefact biographies is well established, but has received increasing criticism from archaeologists and anthropologists. This article reviews this concept and its critiques from the basis of a new digital analysis (using reflectance transformation imaging) of a small group of decorated Neolithic artefacts from the Isle of Man and north Wales: stone plaques. We argue that the plaques are best understood as being situated in diverse and changing networks of relationships because they are altered over time. To adequately comprehend the changes undergone by these remarkable artefacts it is important that we highlight the ontological character of these changes. To this end we argue that, rather than possessing cultural biographies, these artefacts are best described as being ‘multiple objects’.

The epigraphic stela of Montoro (Córdoba): the earliest monumental script in Iberia?

Abstract A remarkable stela from Montoro, southern Spain, is unique in its morphology, epigraphic traits and landscape context. A programme of chemical characterisation, digital imaging, and geo-lithological and epigraphic analyses were conducted to determine its age and significance, and the results were integrated with data from archaeological investigations of the surrounding area. This multi-faceted approach allowed the stela to be interpreted within the context of early interactions between literate Mediterranean societies of the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age and non-literate Iberian societies. A key outcome of this research is a wider understanding of the complex patterns in the use and perception of early scripts.