Close Range Photogrammetry and Enhanced Recording of Palaeolithic Rock Art

Recording of archaeological sites has long been studied by many scientific organizations. However, the analyses and evolution of human beings through rock art is one of the most challenging tasks in prehistoric archaeology, not only because of the unpredicted contribution to the understanding of the past but also because of the difficulties for appropriate recording. Tracing, rubbing and photography are traditional techniques used to provide just two-dimensional results many times in combination with digital image processing. But often, they lack in accuracy depending on size, roughness, complexity of the site, means and experience. This paper deals with the recording of a Palaeolithic rock art panel with complex, tiny, shallow and faint engravings, hardly difficult to record by traditional techniques. For this purpose, a combination of close range photogrammetry, multiband photography with varying incident light and advanced image processing tools, including merging, principal components analyses and colour balance has been used. It allowed us to generate an ortho-image mosaic best adapted to the steep digital model of the panel as well as a metric composite enhanced imagery characterizing the whole set of engraving. The potential of the developed approach will be illustrated by reference to the Palaeolithic rock art motifs of Meravelles Cave (Valencia, Spain). Additionally, a photo-realistic model has been carried out to show the Palaeolithic motifs in 3-D.