The UK’s York Archaeological Trust was recently commissioned to use contemporary technology to spatially and digitally record England’s historic Stonehenge.

[T]he team used 3D scanning to gather more than 850 gigabytes of data.

Preliminary examination of the meshed models identified individual tool marks over 5,000 years old, but it was evident the data contained more prehistoric artwork carved onto the surface of the stones.

The layering and shading functions in Pointools allowed carvings of Bronze Age axe heads and daggers invisible to the naked eye to be visualized, providing sub-millimeter accuracy to the archaeologists.

It’ll be interesting as this kind of technology is applied to other archaeological sites around the world. Just thinking about seeing this in action in Mesoamerica, for example, is making me drool.

Metaphorically. I leave the literal drooling to my cats.

Via Graphic Speak.