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Material Culture Illustration
Material Culture Illustration

Material Culture Illustration

We produce publication-quality artifact and specimen illustrations in the medium that best suits your needs.

Desert Archaeology staff can be contracted to visually record individual artifacts, biological specimens, or entire collections, as well as to create depictions of past lifeways. Available illustration methods include the pencil and/or ink drawings that are often required for mortuary artifacts, high-resolution digital scanning, and digital and film photography.

Robert B. Ciaccio has more than 15 years of experience photographing and hand-illustrating artifacts of all material types. On request, he can create roll-out views of ceramic designs, as well as profiles extrapolated from partial vessels. His work is prominently featured on signage at archaeological parks across Arizona, helping viewers understand past farming and hunting communities.

Eric Carlson is a project director and illustrator for Desert Archaeology. He specializes in technical artifact illustrations, field renderings of archaeological and architectural features, rock art documentation, site reconstructions, and museum exhibit displays. He has worked as an on-site illustrator at Pre-pottery Neolithic and Early Bronze Age sites in Jordan and early monastic sites in Ireland, recorded rock art in remote regions of Alaska, and accrued extensive experience illustrating past lifeways throughout the northwestern US. His local work has focused on illustrating decorated ceramic vessels, shell ornaments, ground stone objects, and projectile points from Hohokam sites in the Phoenix Basin. He utilizes a variety of illustrative styles and is adaptable to the unique demands a client may have for conveying visual information.

Click here for Carlson’s blog post on illustrating Hohokam decorated ceramics.

Click any image below to enlarge.
Ceramic vessels and ground stone pipes from the North American Great Plains (published in <em>The Archaeology of the North American Great Plains</em>, by Douglas B. Bamforth, Cambridge World Archaeology, 2021). Pre-pottery Neolithic hand axe and stone bowl from the 12,500-year-old site of Dhra’, Jordan (by Eric Carlson).
Ceramic vessels and ground stone pipes from the North American Great Plains (published in The Archaeology of the North American Great Plains, by Douglas B. Bamforth, Cambridge World Archaeology, 2021). Pre-pottery Neolithic hand axe and stone bowl from the 12,500-year-old site of Dhra’, Jordan (by Eric Carlson).
Flaking stages to remove channel flake on a Paleoindian Clovis point (left). Three Clovis spear points showing basal variation (by Eric Carlson).
Flaking stages to remove channel flake on a Paleoindian Clovis point (left). Three Clovis spear points showing basal variation (by Eric Carlson).
Petroglyphs shown in spatial context within three boulder-lined communal structures at late precontact lakeside settlements in the Western Brooks Range, Alaska (published in <em>Iñupiaq Cultural Complexity as Viewed from Three Late Prehistoric Lakeside Settlements in the Western Brooks Range</em>, by Scott Shirar, Jeff Rasic, Eric Carlson, and Sam Coffman. University of Alaska Museum of the North and the National Park Service, 2025).
Petroglyphs shown in spatial context within three boulder-lined communal structures at late precontact lakeside settlements in the Western Brooks Range, Alaska (published in Iñupiaq Cultural Complexity as Viewed from Three Late Prehistoric Lakeside Settlements in the Western Brooks Range, by Scott Shirar, Jeff Rasic, Eric Carlson, and Sam Coffman. University of Alaska Museum of the North and the National Park Service, 2025).
Drawing depicting how a clay tube could be incised for snapping apart into fired-clay beads, along with the distinctive features of the finished beads. These are tiny artifacts with diameters of roughly 5 mm (by Robert Ciaccio).
Drawing depicting how a clay tube could be incised for snapping apart into fired-clay beads, along with the distinctive features of the finished beads. These are tiny artifacts with diameters of roughly 5 mm (by Robert Ciaccio).
Corn cob from a San Pedro phase context at Las Capas, Tucson (by Robert Ciaccio).
Corn cob from a San Pedro phase context at Las Capas, Tucson (by Robert Ciaccio).
Hohokam basket fragments from the Yuma Wash site, Tucson (by Robert Ciaccio).
Hohokam basket fragments from the Yuma Wash site, Tucson (by Robert Ciaccio).