* Employment, Utilization, and Development of Airborne Laser Scanning in Fenno-Scandinavian Archaeology–a Review (2020) (original) (raw)
This paper gives a presentation of how airborne laser scanning (ALS) has been adopted in archaeology in the North over the period 2005-2019. Almost two decades have passed since ALS first emerged as a potential tool to add to the archaeologist's toolbox. Soon after, it attracted the attention of researchers within archaeological communities engaged with remote sensing in the Fenno-Scandinavian region. The first archaeological ALS projects gave immediate good results and led to further use, research, and development through new projects that followed various tracks. The bulk of the research and development focused on studying how well-suited ALS is for identifying, mapping, and documenting archaeological features in outfield land, mainly in forested areas. The poor situation in terms of lack of information on archaeological records in outfield areas has been challenging for research and especially for cultural heritage management for a long period of time. Consequently, an obvious direction was to study how ALS-based mapping of cultural features in forests could help to improve the survey situation. This led to various statistical analyses and studies covering research questions related to for instance effects on detection success of laser pulse density, and the size and shape of the targeted features. Substantial research has also been devoted to the development and assessment of semi-automatic detection of archaeological features based on the use of algorithms. This has been studied as an alternative approach to human desk-based visual analyses and interpretations of ALS data. This approach has considerable potential for detecting sites over large regions such as the vast roadless and unbuilt wilderness regions of northern Fennoscandia, and has proven highly successful. In addition, the current review presents how ALS has been employed for monitoring purposes and for landscape studies, including how it can influence landscape understanding. Finally, the most recent advance within ALS research and development has been discussed: testing of the use of drones for data acquisition. In conclusion, aspects related to the utilization of ALS in archaeological research and cultural heritage management are summarized and discussed, together with thoughts about future perspectives.
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Remote Sensing, 2020
This paper gives a presentation of how airborne laser scanning (ALS) has been adopted in archaeology in the North over the period 2005–2019. Almost two decades have passed since ALS first emerged as a potential tool to add to the archaeologist’s toolbox. Soon after, it attracted the attention of researchers within archaeological communities engaged with remote sensing in the Fenno-Scandinavian region. The first archaeological ALS projects gave immediate good results and led to further use, research, and development through new projects that followed various tracks. The bulk of the research and development focused on studying how well-suited ALS is for identifying, mapping, and documenting archaeological features in outfield land, mainly in forested areas. The poor situation in terms of lack of information on archaeological records in outfield areas has been challenging for research and especially for cultural heritage management for a long period of time. Consequently, an obvious di...
AIRBORNE LASER SCANNING AND LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY
Opuscula archaeologica 39/40(1), 2018
Airborne lidar (Light Detection And Ranging), ALS or ALSM (Airborne Laser Scanning, Airborne Laser Swath Mapping) is an active remote sensing technique , which records the surface of the earth using laser scanning. ALS allows very precise three-dimensional mapping of the surface of the earth, producing high-resolution topographic data, even where surface is obscured by forest and vegetation. The level of detail on digital surface and terrain models produced from high resolution ALS topographic data helps us enormously in identification of past events, which reworked and modified the surface of the earth. However , interpretation of ALS data poses much more than technical challenges. ALS does not provide only a layer of data, but offers a different view of landscape. What kind of landscapes do we see with ALS?
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Space, Time and Place. 3rd International Conference on Remote Sensing in Archaeology (eds. M. Forte, S. Campana & C. Liuzza), 2010
The archaeological survey situation in Norway is rather uneven because it is largely settled farmland areas that have been the object of systematic survey campaigns. The archaeological records for forests and other outfield areas are very flawed, which makes proper cultural heritage management of these areas difficult. This paper outlines how airborne laser scanning (ALS) can contribute to an improvement in the situation. The advantages and challenges of using ALS are discussed and analysis of statistics from two completed ALS projects shows how large a percentage of the cultural remains it is possible to detect, to what degree we have succeeded with interpretation of the digital elevation models and the accuracy of remote sensing based documentation of the remains. The conclusion is that ALS can successfully be used to conduct remote sensing based surveys and documentation of cultural monuments and remains with competitive accuracy in all kinds of landscape. Forest and outfield areas which so far have been given little attention can now be surveyed efficiently and improve research and cultural heritage management.
The Application of Airborne Laser Scanning Systems in Archaeology: Moving beyond pretty pictures
The last decade, Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) has proven to be a valuable tool for large-scale archaeological survey and mapping. It has especially revolutionized survey of densely forested areas, thanks to its ability to penetrate vegetation canopies. In recent years, research interest has moved beyond producing pretty pictures and has focused more on technological issues, e.g. the influence of point density and the benefits of full-waveform systems. Despite its potential, ALS also has limitations and the use of ALS data encounters challenges such as data filtering, classification and issues of interpretation. This review presents an overview of ALS technology for archaeological purposes, taking into account its benefits and limitations.
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Archaeological applications using airborne laser scanning (ALS) are increasing in number. Since the production of ALS-derived digital terrain models (DTM) involves a considerable amount of money, most applications use general purpose ALS data, which are usually cheaper and sometimes even provided for free for scientific applications. The main problem that comes with this kind of data is the frequent lack of meta-information. The archaeologist often does not get the information about original point density, time of flight, instrument used, type of flying platform, filter and DTM generation procedure etc. Therefore, ALS becomes a kind of “black box”, where the derived DTM is used without further knowledge about underlying technology, algorithms, and metadata. Consequently, there is a certain risk that the data used will not be suitable for the archaeological application. Based on the experience of a two-year project “LiDAR-Supported Archaeological Prospection in Woodland”, the paper will give a review on archaeological ALS, explain its the basic process, demonstrate its potential for landscape archaeology especially in densely forested areas, and draw the attention to some critical parameters of ALS, which should be known to the user. Finally, further issues, which need to be solved in near future, are discussed.
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