Communities of Art Practices on the Lower Columbia River: Technical Photography Using Infrared, UV, and Visible Light

Author(s): Yoli Ngandali

Year: 2019

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recovered from strata, stolen, sold off to feed their families, gifted, or commissioned for museum display Lower Columbia River or Chinookan carved stone effigies and artifacts are currently scattered across numerous collections and repositories. Previous analyses of Chinookan art styles have been limited to classifying motif attributes, but this research provides a diachronic analysis of the relationship between material culture and technology. Primarily focused on carved and painted groundstone pieces, I employed a chaîne opératoire approach and technical photographic techniques to examine the production process. I utilized a suite of digital, multispectral, and false-color imaging tools to detect evidence of use-wear, carving, and paint deterioration over time. By controlling and manipulating color-band distributions of the electromagnetic spectrum (ultraviolet 300-400nm, visible 400-750nm, and infrared 750nm-1mm), I observed a variation in absorbed, reflected, and re-emitted luminescence. My results indicate that light penetrates the object depending on the wavelength and absorbance of the material. Results also suggest that faint ochres and carving, not easily observable on basaltic stone, reveal diagnostic patterns of modification and technological style. These data concerning the production process contribute to the study of object biographies and shared technological knowledge among communities of practice along the Lower Columbia River.

Cite this Record

Communities of Art Practices on the Lower Columbia River: Technical Photography Using Infrared, UV, and Visible Light. Yoli Ngandali. Presented at The 84th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Albuquerque, NM. 2019 ( tDAR id: 449807)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25057