Barbara Oosterwijk

Barbara is a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. Her PhD was obtained at Durham University where she specialized in Palaeolithic cave art, introducing the novel concept of embodied placemaking which refers to how people gave meaning to places in the landscape by utilizing parts of their body to produce paintings. Her research led her to explore both deep caves and open-air rock art sites in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and the United Kingdom gaining valuable expertise in rock art documentation and enhancement techniques such as photogrammetry, tracing, DStretch and RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging).

A large component of her research is aimed at the comparative and interpretative analysis of rock art traditions. During a placement in British Colombia she shared her expertise in digital documentation techniques and collaborated with Tsimshian and Nuxálk communities to record local petroglyphs. Engaging with indigenous communities to discuss and research rock art has been an important part of her research. Likewise in Montana, USA her research focussed on the relation between rock art and the Crow and Shoshone vision quest.

On the Last Journey project, she is investigating the elaborate rock art of Serranía de La Lindosa with as main goal to create typologies and chronologies of the different categories of rock art. Furthermore, she is interested in experimental research on the Chaîne Opératoire of paintings: from the procurement of raw material to pigment preparation and mixing techniques to the application of pigment to the rock surface.