Ethics in Archaeological Lidar

Abstract

Airborne laser scanning or lidar has now been used by archaeologists for twenty years, with many of the first applications relying on data acquired by public agencies seeking to establish baseline elevation maps, mainly in Europe and North America. More recently, several wide-area acquisitions have been designed and commissioned by archaeologists, the most extensive of which cover tropical forest environments in the Americas and Southeast Asia. In these regions, the ability of lidar to map microtopographic relief and reveal anthropogenic traces on the Earth's surface, even beneath dense vegetation, has been welcomed by many as a transformational breakthrough in our field of research. Nevertheless, applications of the method have attracted a measure of criticism and controversy, and the impact and significance of lidar are still debated. Now that wide-area, high-density laser scanning is becoming a standard part of many archaeologists' toolkits, it is an opportune moment to reflect on its position in contemporary archaeological practice and to move towards a code of ethics that is vital for scientific research. The papers in this Special Collection draw on experiences with using lidar in archaeological research programs, not only to highlight the new insights that derive from it but also to cast a critical eye on past practices and to assess what challenges and opportunities remain for developing codes of ethics. Using examples from a range of countries and environments, contributions revolve around three key themes: data management and access; the role of stakeholders; and public education. We draw on our collective experiences to propose a range of improvements in how we collect, use, and share lidar data, and we argue that as lidar acquisitions mature we are well positioned to produce ethical, impactful, and reproducible research using the technique.

Documentation of Archaeology-Specific Workflow for Airborne LiDAR Data Processing

“…However, archaeologists often do not have copyright of the data, which can be an additional problem for archiving [27]. In addition, ethical and regulatory aspects must be considered both in dissemination and archiving [1,2]. At the very least, however, the results of interpretative mapping should be archived according to accepted standards for GIS data [89].…”

“…Airborne LiDAR is nowadays a widely accepted tool for archaeological prospection, e.g., [1,2]. With a combination of perception and comprehension [3,4] archaeologists interpret enhanced visualizations of high-resolution raster elevation models that have been interpolated from processed airborne LiDAR data.…”

Comparison of Filters for Archaeology-Specific Ground Extraction from Airborne LiDAR Point Clouds

“…(r) Cloth resolution: refers to the grid size of the cloth with which the terrain is covered, i.e., the distance between the particles in the cloth (default: 2.0). The same value as the resolution of the final DEM worked best, lower values (e.g., 1 2 the cell-size of the final DEM) introduced artifacts. Lowering the value increases the processing times exponentially.…”

“…Airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is now widely used in archaeological prospection [1,2]. Archaeologists interpret enhanced visualizations of airborne LiDAR-derived high-resolution digital terrain models (DTMs) with a combination of perception and comprehension, e.g., [3,4].…”

Airborne LiDAR-Derived Digital Elevation Model for Archaeology

“…The use of topographic airborne LiDAR data (also known as airborne laser scanning or ALS) has become an essential part of archaeological prospection [1], e.g., [2][3][4]. Archaeologists interpret enhanced visualizations of high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) interpolated from classified point clouds [5][6][7].…”