The story of the Project and NOSAS’s involvement up to the end of May 2017
by Alan Thompson (NOSAS)
Background to the Project and NOSAS involvement
Scotland’s Rock Art Project is a five-year project to record and research prehistoric rock art. The scheme is run by Historic Environment Scotland (HES) and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
The aim of the project is to improve understanding and awareness of Scotland’s rock art through research. In order to research the carvings, we need to first develop a comprehensive, detailed record of where they are and what they look like.
As many of you will already know, NOSAS is a partner in this project. Our specific role in 2017 is to work with Tertia Barnett and her team to pilot and test the recording methods to be used. Beyond that we will be one of a number of Community groups recording rock art across Scotland.
As with all such projects, there is a challenge in ensuring that small groups, working independently in the field, make their records in a sufficiently consistent and comprehensive way that the results are meaningful for analysis by Tertia and her academic partners.
Tertia has extensive experience in recording rock art in England, including in the Northumberland and Durham Rock Art Project (NADRAP). At that time photogrammetry was still somewhat specialised and could only be used selectively, but despite that some great results were obtained demonstrating that rock art is an ideal subject for photogrammetry. The progress of technology since then means that our project will major on the use of photogrammetry – we intend that all panels (each discrete exposure of a piece of rock art is called a panel) should be recorded this way.
Tertia also plans an App for recording, the idea being similar to that used by the Scharp/Scape project which some of you have used. That will take a little time to specify and program, and so in the meanwhile (for the pilot work) we are using paper forms.
Discussing how to record this CMS. (Photo Anne Cockroft)
NOSAS Involvement in the Pilot Project
NOSAS has committed to work with Tertia to record enough panels in our local area in 2017 to fully test the methods she is developing. 35 members have indicated an interest and most of these have already become involved. If other members are interested they should contact John Wombell or Alan Thompson.
Progress to date
The project is now underway. We have held two ‘familiarisation’ afternoons at Clava, plus training sessions with Tertia at Dingwall and Drumore. Continue reading
NOSAS Archaeology Blog 