Fingerprint specialist drops in at Ness HQ during Scottish road trip

Monday, May 26, 2025 (10:21 AM)

Professor Kent Fowler (centre) pictured with Anne Mitchell, Nick Card, Tam the dog (left) and Ness pottery specialists Jan Blatchford and Roy Towers.

An image of a fingerprint captured using Reflectance Transformation Imaging. (📷 Jan Blatchford)

We had an exciting visitor to Ness HQ last week when Professor Kent Fowler, from the University of Manitoba, stopped by on his road trip around Scotland.

Based in Winnipeg, on the Canadian prairies, Kent has been involved with the Ness since 2021, when we published images of fingerprint impressions left on damp, newly made Neolithic pots.

Kent studies such prints and has developed techniques to age and sex the print owners and our website post was brought to his attention. RTI images by our pot specialist Jan Blatchford were sent to Winnipeg and Kent was able to tell us that the Ness prints were left by young and mature men.

This contrasts with what is known about indigenous potting societies worldwide over the past several hundred years. In more than 85 per cent of these cultures pots are made by females. So, yet again, something new and different for the Ness team to consider.