Revisiting Creswell Crags: applying digital methods to reassess the northernmost examples of Upper Palaeolithic cave art

The engraved parietal art of Creswell Crags, discovered in 2003, remains the only example of Palaeolithic cave art in the U.K. and represents the northernmost signature of Upper Palaeolithic artistic behaviour. Despite its unique nature and significant advances in digital techniques used to evaluate parietal art, it has received limited academic attention in the past two decades since its discovery. We utilized a suite of digital modelling techniques (high-resolution photography, close-range photogrammetry, Reflectance Transformation Imaging) to reassess the art. Our results demonstrate the potential of such techniques to revise the original interpretations of the art and provide tentative, yet accessible, evidence of previously unidentified engravings. Our work also produced an accessible digital repository with vast potential for future research into this important site.