Reflectance Transformation Imaging of the Lindved remains from Iron Age Denmark: a BODY-POLITICS dataset

Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) was implemented as a photographic method in the study of the remains of a young woman deposited in a cooking pit from Iron Age Denmark, to document and further analyse any bone fragments that showed evidence of post-mortem manipulation and modification, such as cut marks, heat treatment and gnaw marks. Following recommendations by Clarke and Christensen (2016), a Polynomial Texture Map RTI model (PTM 18) and a Hemispherical Harmonics RTI model (HSH 27) were generated for each area of interest. This allowed the use of various rendering modes in RTIViewer software, where we found the following seven transformations particularly useful: Default; Diffuse Grain; Normal Unsharp Masking; Luminance Unsharp Masking; Coefficient Unsharp Masking; Static Multi Light; Dynamic Multi Light (e.g. Desmond et al. 2021; Mytum and Peterson 2018; Palma et al. 2010). RTI models can be viewed in the Open Access software RTIViewer (ISTI-CNR/CHI RTIViewer) References Clarke, S., and Christensen, A.M. 2016. Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) of saw marks on bones. Journal of Forensic Radiology and Imaging 7, 33-37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jofri.2016.11.004 Desmond, A., Cartwright, I., and Allen, R. 2021. Documenting Functional Use-Wear on Bone Tools: An RTI Approach.Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology 4(7), 214-229. https://doi.org/10.5334/jcaa.80 Mytum, H., and Peterson, J.R. 2018. The Application of Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) in Historical Archaeology. Historical Archaeology 52, 489-503. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41636-018-0107-x Palma, G., Corsini, M., Cignoni, P., Scopigno, R., and Mudge, M. 2010. Dynamic shading enhancement for reflectance transformation imaging. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage 3(2), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1145/1841317.1841321