I was just listening to a recent youtube video from the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center titled “The Archaeology of Rock Art” by Dr. Larry Loendorf. I strongly suggest anyone with interest in archeology in general and the southwest in particular check it out. https://youtu.be/__4oghKtDE8
If anything good can have come out of pandemic, I think it is the work dones by groups like this to continue with using technology (zoom, youtube) to provide fascinating and edcuational programming to a wider audience than ever. For this particular subject there were over 300+ in the audience, whereas if it were conducted in person there would only have been maybe 30-40 in attendance.
But now for the real reason for this post.
In this meeting, they were discussing a new way of imaging pictographs that really highlight what would normally be a very faint image. The program is called idstretch, and it is available on the apple and ipad. The app is not free, but for anyone interested in pictographs it is a must have. I am not sure if anyone in the upper midwest has seen this app (the concept has been around for nearly 14 years), but if you havent, take a look.
I downloaded it and made a first try, and wow!!!!was I impressed. I took an image I made of the pictographs and ran it through various option to see what it looked like. Take a look at the original image, and the enhanced image. I had no idea that these were the images.
So now I am going through my photo library of pictograph sites in the midwest and elsewhere to see what other amazing images can be made.
Original Image of Roche-a-Cri Pictograph
Processed with idstretch