LiDAR-guided Archaeological Survey of a Mediterranean Landscape: Lessons from the Ancient Greek Polis of Kolophon (Ionia, Western Anatolia) (original) (raw)
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Archaeological Prospection, 2024
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Light detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology is a valuable tool for archaeological prospection in areas covered by dense vegetation. Its capacity to penetrate dense forest environments enables it to detect archaeological remains scattered over orographically complex areas. LiDAR-derived digital terrain models (DTMs) have made an exceptional contribution towards identifying topographic landscapes of archaeological interest. In this study, we focus on an area of intense historic settlement from the Chalcolithic to the Middle Ages, which today is completely covered by Mediterranean forest. Due to the dense canopy, and the fact that it is a protected area on private land, it has never been analyzed. To reveal the settlement, we primarily used a series of LiDAR mapping surveys to gather data and analyzed other open access remote sensing resources from the National Geographic Institute of Spain (IGN). The IGN LiDAR data proved to be of particular interest. These resources enabled us to ...
Archaeological Prospection, 2024
Airborne laser scanning (ALS), commonly known as Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), is a remote sensing technique that enables transformative archaeological research by providing high-density 3D representations of landscapes and sites covered by vegetation whose analysis reveals hidden features and structures. ALS can detect targets under trees and grasslands, making it an ideal archaeological survey and mapping tool. ALS instruments are usually mounted on piloted aircraft. However, since the mid-2010s, smaller laser scanners can be mounted on uncrewed aerial vehicles or drones. In this article, we examined the viability of drone-based ALS for archaeological applications by utilizing a RIEGL VUX-UAV 22 sensor to capture point clouds with high spatial resolution at the archaeological site of Heloros in Southeastern Sicily, founded by the Greeks in the late eighth century bce. Using this laser scanner, we surveyed over 1.6 km 2 of the archaeological landscape, producing datasets that outperformed noncommercial airborne ALS data for the region made available by the Italian government. We produced derivative imagery free of vegetation, which we visualized in GIS using a modified Local Relief Model technique to aid our archaeological analyses. Our findings demonstrate that drone-based ALS can penetrate the dense Mediterranean canopy of coastal Sicily with sufficient point density to enable more efficient mapping of underlying archaeological features such as stone quarries, cart tracks, defensive towers and fortification walls. Our study proved that drone-based ALS sensors can be easily transported to remote locations and that in-house lab staff can safely operate them, which enables multiple on-demand surveys and opportunistic collections to be conducted on the fly when environmental conditions are ideal. We conclude that these capabilities further increase the benefits of utilizing ALS for surveying the archaeological landscape under the Mediterranean canopy.
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Sensing the Past, 2017
Remote sensing technologies have helped to revolutionize archaeology. LiDAR (light detection and ranging), a remote sensing technology in which lasers are used as topographic scanners that can penetrate foliage, has particularly influenced researchers in the field of settlement or landscape archaeology. LiDAR provides detailed landscape data for broad spatial areas and permits visualization of these landscapes in ways that were never before possible. These data and visualizations have been widely utilized to gain a better understanding of historical landscapes and their past uses by ancient peoples.
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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.
Advances in Geosciences, 2010
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Remote Sensing, 14, 6074., 2022
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Archaeological Prospection, 2024
The case study area is a small but typical prehistoric landscape in the Kras Plateau on the north coast of the central Mediterranean. The Late Bronze and Iron Age Kras Plateau was an emblematic Mediterranean archaeological landscape dotted with numerous hillforts. Since the mid-20th century, the landscape had been overgrown with some of the most archaeology-hostile vegetation, severely impeding landscape archaeology until archaeological LiDAR revealed thousands of archaeological features that attest to a carefully constructed and managed agro-pastoral landscape. However, these discoveries were hampered by insecure chronology typical of any LiDAR guided analysis. This case study meticulously documented two prehistoric hillforts and a previously unknown agro-pastoral landscape with hundreds of archaeological features. The focus of the article, however, was on establishing a more precise and objective dating method. We proposed a multiproxy method to date the archaeological landscape. It combines relative dating using remote sensing data and historical maps; dating based on historical context; relative stratigraphic dating; indirect dating based on associated archaeological finds; and dating by association. Particularly, we focused on the association-based dating of archaeological features. We proposed a method based on the concept of taskscapes that relies on kernel density estimation. Using these methods, we objectively demonstrated that agro-pastoral landscape features documented with archaeological LiDAR were contemporaneous with Late Bronze Age and Iron Age hillforts and have no connection to the post-medieval landscape. The latter has important methodological implications for the prehistoric archaeology of Mediterranean karst landscapes, where backdating post-Medieval landscapes is a common practise.