New Data on Paintings of the Nukzha Rock Art Site (Amur Region)

The rock art site of Nukzha is located in northern Amur Region at the mouth of the Onyoni River. It was studied in the mid 1970s by A.P. Okladnikov and A.I. Mazin. As in the other rock art sites of the region, the Nukzha paintings were made by red mineral pigment. For a long time this location was inaccessible after construction of the Baikal-Amur railway. However, in the early 2000s, the studies of the Nukzha rock art site resumed. The project of additional branch of the railway required further research at the Nukzha site. During the field works of 2021, a new indexing was proposed, and detailed re-documenting of the site was carried out using up-to-date techniques of photo-documenting and processing of photographic materials. As a result, it was possible to make a comparison with the previously published evidence concerning the preservation state of the site, and identify some damage and loss of panel fragments. In addition, the previously published tracings were corrected and unknown images were found and recorded. Due to advanced approaches to documentation, including photography, 3D visualization, and color filtering of digital images, the authors of this article have managed to take a new look at this well-studied rock art site. Many paintings which looked like amorphous stains of red pigment appeared as recognizable images when viewed directly by the DStrech plug-in after colorfiltering. The experience of the Nukzha rock art site study once again shows the necessity of re-documentation of rock art sites.