Aerial survey for archaeology

Abstract

Aerial photography for archaeology has been developing its approaches and techniques over the past 100 years so that it now integrates the results of reconnaissance with extensive interpretative and analytical surveys. This paper introduces the philosophy and approach of the English Heritage (EH) Aerial Survey team, covering aerial reconnaissance and the National Mapping Programme (NMP), as well as the potential developments and opportunities in Europe. In the 1980s there was a debate over the nature of the evidence derived from aerial photographs, especially how to describe archaeological features. As part of NMP a classification and recording system has been devised which meets most of the users' needs, be they national organisations, county archaeologists, commercial contractors or university-based researchers. The maps and records produced by NMP are used to further our understanding of the past human settlement in England, not only at the individual site level, but also in regional or landscape contexts. This paper provides an overview of the current progress of NMP and acts as an entrée for explaining the current research and recording of archaeological landscapes throughout Europe. Recent developments in Britain and Europe have provided the opportunity for a greater priority to be given to aerial survey and accelerating programmes of mapping. In Europe the ending of the cold war has allowed greater access to aerial photographs and the possibility of beginning new reconnaissance, as well as introducing new forms of remote sensing. All these developments have led to a transformation of our understanding of prehistoric, Roman and medieval archaeology.

QuickBird‐based analysis for the spatial characterization of archaeological sites: Case study of the Monte Serico medieval village

“…[2] Presently, aerial photos are the most common remote sensing data source used in the field of archaeological investigations [Bewley, 1997[Bewley, , 2003. Satellite data have not been extensively used due to the limited spatial resolution of conventional imagery, such as TM (30 m) or Spot (10 m) which did not allow for the use of applications developed for detection and spatial analysis of ancient buried settlements.…”

Orthogonal Equations of Multi-Spectral Satellite Imagery for the Identification of Un-Excavated Archaeological Sites

“…The spectral band responses ρ for each sensor were simulated by integrating the measured radiances (at the top of the canopy) for each target, with the spectral response curve applied as a weighting function, i.e., (1) where R is the measured reflected radiation at the top of the canopy as a function of wavelength λ, w is the relative response of the broadband sensor and I is the corresponding incident radiance measured on an ideal reference panel. The actual reference panel measurement I is corrected to the ideal (100% reflectance) by dividing the measured value by its true reflectance ρ ref.…”

“…Detection of buried archaeological features using medium or high resolution satellite imagery is a well-established procedure in archeological research [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Buried structures may be identified mainly by image interpretation of crop marks [9][10][11] or using semi-automatic techniques [12,13].…”

Detecting Neolithic Burial Mounds from LiDAR-Derived Elevation Data Using a Multi-Scale Approach and Machine Learning Techniques

“…High-density and high-precision LiDAR point clouds are processed to generate terrain models that are then used to detect and characterise archaeological evidence through the analysis of morphological or topographic anomalies [1][2][3].…”