Non-Destructive Analysis of Pictographs at Painted Bluff: Understanding Prehistoric Paint Recipes in the Southeastern United States
Author(s): Sierra Bow; Jan Simek; Alan Cressler
Year: 2016
Summary
Analytic methods for prehistoric pigment analyses, especially for rock art, have seen important enhancements over the past decade. In particular, the development of non-destructive, field-portable instrumentation has been transformational. Painted Bluff in Alabama is one of the richest rock art localities in the Southeastern US. Initial SEM-EDS analyses there yielded results consistent with prehistoric technology, but this method is destructive and only a limited number of pictographs were therefore analyzed. Here, we report on the in-situ use of several non-destructive techniques on over 30 pictographs to comprehensively characterize the pigment recipes used to produce the pictographs at Painted Bluff.
Cite this Record
Non-Destructive Analysis of Pictographs at Painted Bluff: Understanding Prehistoric Paint Recipes in the Southeastern United States. Sierra Bow, Jan Simek, Alan Cressler. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Orlando, Florida. 2016 ( tDAR id: 403468)
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Keywords
General
Prehistoric Pigment Analysis
Geographic Keywords
North America - Southeast
Spatial Coverage
min long: -91.274; min lat: 24.847 ; max long: -72.642; max lat: 36.386 ;