LiDAR for Archaeological Research and the Study of Historical Landscapes (original) (raw)
Related papers
Skin Deep: LiDAR and Good Practice of Landscape Archaeology
Good Practice in Archaeological Diagnostics, 2013
LiDAR—like photography and other visual technologies—not only produces pictures but extends our power to detect, record, and imagine landscapes. It allows very precise three-dimensional mapping of the surface of the earth, generating as it does high-resolution topographic data even where surface is obscured by forest and vegetation. Interpretation of LiDAR data poses much more than just technical challenges. What makes LiDAR different from other topographic techniques is absence of selectiveness: data are typically gathered across complete landscape blocks recording landscape in an indiscriminate way. This allows us to address complex sites as integral parts of landscapes and as landscapes in themselves. In this way we can analyze complex sites as palimpsests, created through processes and practices that accumulated and inscribed new traces or erased old ones. Study of complex sites is thus part of the study of landscapes, landscape archaeology.
LiDAR Applications in Archaeology: A Systematic Review
Archaeological Prospection, 2024
In the last two decades, the analysis of data derived from LiDAR (light detection and ranging) technology has dramatically changed the investigation and documentation of past cultural landscapes, sometimes revealing monumental architectures and settlement systems totally unknown before. Despite the exponential uptick of case studies, an extensive review of LiDAR applications in archaeology is so far missing. Here, we present a systematic survey of works published in international journals in 2001–2022, with the aim of providing an annotated bibliography on the theme and collect quantitative information about each case study. Data collected allowed to analyse the geographic distribution of LiDAR-based studies, the specifics of acquisitions, the topography and vegetation cover of each study area, the characteristics of the material culture detected, major goals and integrated techniques. The survey considers 291 studies, of which 167 located in Europe, 104 in the Americas and only 20 between Asia, Middle East, Oceania and Africa. Our analysis shows that the impact of LiDAR in archaeological studies was greater in some areas of Europe and North America, where scholars could rely on the availability of open data provided by the institutions. This is testified by the higher number of both case studies and large-scale projects investigating these regions. It also emerges that LiDAR potential largely depends on the characteristics of the material culture, the vegetation cover and data resolution. These factors underlie the outstanding results achieved through LiDAR in tropical rainforests compared to those obtained in temperate areas, such as the Mediterranean, where the outcropping archaeological evidence, albeit vast and widespread, is generally less preserved and obscured by the dense vegetation of the Mediterranean maquis. We conclude that the increasing availability of LiDAR data over vast areas could lead to enormous advances in the investigation, monitoring and protection of the cultural heritage.
Some Examples of Good Practice in LiDAR Prospection in Preventive Archaeology
Interdisciplinaria Archaeologica. Natural Sciences in Archaeology, 2017
The prime objective of this article is to demonstrate the possibilities of LiDAR mapping in the field of preventive archaeology. The article focuses upon detailed descriptions of case studies that present particular examples of LiDAR application possibilities, as well as its limitations. The final remarks sum up an appropriate procedure for LiDAR prospection when applied to preventive archaeology and cultural heritage.
LIDAR -based surface height measurements: applications in archaeology
L ight detection and ranging (LIDAR) is an airborne remote-sensing technique that can measure terrain elevation. The first LIDAR surface height measurements for parts of the Netherlands became available in 2001. By 2004, the database covered the entire country. The first digital elevation models (DEM) based on these data showed more landscape detail than ever achieved before. Studies of applications in geomorphological mapping were quickly published after the release of the first databases . The first application to archaeological research was a paleogeographical reconstruction of an area where 49 fish traps and 11 fish weirs were found during an excavation in a residual gully (van Zijverden 2002). It proved impossible to make a paleogeographical reconstruction of this landscape using conventional hand auger equipment (e.g. Palarczyk 1986; Gehasse 1990), but a combination of archived core descriptions and a DEM allowed for a surface reconstruction within an hour. Based on this experience, a research proposal to investigate the possibilities of this new technology for archaeological research was put together. In 2003, the project was funded by SENTER, an agency of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs that coordinates projects to stimulate the application of new technologies by companies and research institutions.
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?
Remote Sensing, 14, 6074., 2022
Archaeological heritage in woodland is undoubtedly protected from the destructive effect of modern anthropogenic activities by the presence of tree cover, which, at the same time, prevents knowledge of them and makes investigations difficult and time consuming. The tree cover makes geophysical prospection and excavations almost impossible and the use of remote sensing based on optical imagery quite ineffective. In these conditions, LiDAR is the only tool that enables us to “filter out” the canopy to reveal archaeological remains and microtopographical changes of cultural interest. A LiDAR scanner, mounted on aerial platforms, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), sends hundreds of thousands of pulses of light toward the area to be investigated. Most of them are reflected off the forest canopy and a few reach the ground and are reflected back through the canopy. Recording how long it takes the light to return to the scanner produces a point cloud. Over the past two decades, LiDAR has found increasing popularity in archaeology and has opened new perspectives in the study of the human past, revolutionizing the domain of surveying to capture and depict archaeological features under canopy. The popularity of this approach in the archaeological field is such that it has led experts to create workflows and tools for archaeology that are different from approaches used in other disciplines. Moreover, numerous studies also adopted a standard approach, consisting of: (i) raw data acquisition and processing, (ii) point cloud processing and post-processing, (iii) archaeological interpretation phase, and (iv) dissemination. The study of abandoned medieval settlements in highland areas is one of the fields of archaeological research that can greatly benefit from the use of LiDAR technology . They are the result of “social desertification” of vast territories in Europe since the first decade of the 14th century, characterized by a demographic decline occurring after four centuries of prosperity (from the 10th to 13th century) and population growth.
Article Airborne LiDAR for the Detection of Archaeological Vegetation Marks Using Biomass as a Proxy
2015
In arable landscapes, the airborne detection of archaeological features is often reliant on using the properties of the vegetation cover as a proxy for sub-surface features in the soil. Under the right conditions, the formation of vegetation marks allows archaeologists to identify and interpret archaeological features. Using airborne Laser Scanning, based on the principles of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to detect these marks is challenging, particularly given the difficulties of resolving subtle changes in a low and homogeneous crop with these sensors. In this paper, an experimental approach is adopted to explore how these marks could be detected as variations in canopy biomass using both range and full waveform LiDAR data. Although some detection was achieved using metrics of the full waveform data, it is the novel multi-temporal method of using discrete return data to detect and characterise archaeological vegetation marks that is offered for further consideration. This method was demonstrated to be applicable over a range of capture conditions, including soils deemed as difficult (i.e., clays and other heavy soils), and should increase the certainty of detection when employed in the increasingly multi-sensor approaches to heritage prospection and management.