archaeology of the east midlands class 2b beeston winter 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


• 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).



• What can we see?


Roman Fort, Newton Kyme, Yorks

Cropmarks


• What can we see?


Soilmarks Shadow Sites


• Making Sense of Landscape


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 and Using Air Photos


• The English Heritage Archive (National Monument Record Air Photo Library)

• 2.6+ million photographs

• The National Mapping Programme


• Looking from Space?


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




Worldview 2

• Worldview 2

• Typical of modern civilian systems

• 4 spectral bands

• Panchromatic 0.6m resolution

• Multispectral 1.4m resolution


• Lidar – What is it?


• 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


• Lidar – Seeing Beneath the Trees


Welshbury Hill, Gloucestershire (Deveraux et al, 2005)


• Lidar – Understanding What You See


Elevation (Height)

Hill Shade (Shadows)


• Lidar in the Midlands


Lidar used as a tool to update HER Challis et al 2008


• Lidar in the Midlands


M1 motorway widening scheme



• 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

archaeology of the east midlands class 2b beeston winter 2015

Education

air air photography

air lidar

air photos

air university of sheffield

aerial archaeology tutor

archaeology duckworth

aerial reconnaissance

lidar light detection