An Archaeology of the East Midlands Class 2b: Themes in Research: Aerial Archaeology Tutor: Keith Challis east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co. Beeston, Winter 2015
Aug 20, 2015
An Archaeology of the East Midlands
Class 2b: Themes in Research: Aerial Archaeology
Tutor: Keith Challis
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk Beeston, Winter 2015
Finding things from the air
• Air Photography and Archaeology
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Lt Henry Sharp, RE. Stonehenge 1906
Finding things from the air
• Derrick Riley• Derrick Riley (1915-1993) was a one of the outstanding
pioneers of aerial archaeology.
• He began his flying career during the second world war as a bomber pilot and applied his skills in aerial reconnaissance to archaeology in Britain and overseas.
• His campaigns of flying in the 1970s and 80s resulted in the discovery of a vast number of new sites and transformed the understanding of some previously undervalued landscapes, notably the lowlands of the East Midlands and South Yorkshire.
• His books included Early Landscapes from the Air (University of Sheffield, 1980), Aerial Archaeology in Britain (Shire, 1982), and Air Photography and Archaeology (Duckworth, 1987).
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Finding things from the air
• What can we see?
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Roman Fort, Newton Kyme, Yorks
Cropmarks
Finding things from the air
• What can we see?
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Soilmarks Shadow Sites
Finding things from the air
• Making Sense of Landscape
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Later Prehistoric Settlement Trent Valley
An English Heritage, National Mapping Programme cropmark plot, the result of analysis of numerous photographs taken over many years.
Finding things from the air
• Finding and Using Air Photos
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
• The English Heritage Archive (National Monument Record Air Photo Library)
• 2.6+ million photographs
• The National Mapping Programme
Finding things from the air
• Looking from Space?
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Secret Images from Space
“many of the earthworks and cropmarks which we deal with are difficult to see from 2000 ft and I am not therefore clear how ….they would be visible at a distance of 100 miles” J. K. St. Jospeh (1967)
CORONA 860,000 imagescollected between 1960 and the last CORONA mission, in May 1972
Finding things from the air
• Looking from Space?
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
Worldview 2
• Worldview 2
• Typical of modern civilian systems
• 4 spectral bands
• Panchromatic 0.6m resolution
• Multispectral 1.4m resolution
Finding things from the air
• Lidar – What is it?
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
• Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging
• Uses a very high frequency pulsing laser to scan ground below a moving aircraft
• Calculations using GPS and INS allow generation of 3D map of ground surface
Finding things from the air
• Lidar – Seeing Beneath the Trees
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Welshbury Hill, Gloucestershire (Deveraux et al, 2005)
Finding things from the air
• Lidar – Understanding What You See
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Elevation (Height)
Hill Shade (Shadows)
Finding things from the air
• Lidar in the Midlands
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Lidar used as a tool to update HER Challis et al 2008
Finding things from the air
• Lidar in the Midlands
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M1 motorway widening scheme
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Finding things from the air
• Lidar in the MidlandsEast Fen, Lincolnshire
•Lidar reveals the slight traces of the complex creeks and inlets of the Bronze Age valley
•Roddons, sandy ridges exposed by desiccating peat
•The drainage network dramatically altered by Roman and later hydraulic engineering