Aerial Archaeology - Beginners' list

Uses of aerial photographs: introductory references, sources, information List compiled by Rog Palmer

  • http://www.univie.ac.at/Luftbildarchiv/ (This page has been compiled (in English) by Michael Doneus, the person who is in charge of most of Austria’s archaeological aerial survey and photo interpretation and who is pioneering archaeological uses of Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS = Lidar) also a trained photogrammetrist. The web site covers the basics of aerial survey and ALS and shows uses of these in landscape archaeology.)
  • Renfrew C and Bahn P, 2008 (5th ed). Archaeology: theories, methods and practice, 79-91. (a short summary aiming to be global, especially American-global. A 6th edition may be published in 2011 or early 2012.)
  • Riley, D N, 1982 (or 2nd edition). Aerial Archaeology in Britain. Shire, Princes Risborough.
  • Wilson, D R, 1982/2000. Air Photo Interpretation for Archaeologists. Tempus, Stroud. (Photo reading for beginners. Useful for illustrating and describing just about anything archaeological – and many things non-archaeological – that can be seen on air photos of Britain. Good for natural features in UK. Don’t read the text, just look at the pictures and read the captions.)
  • Brophy, K. and Cowley, D. (ed), 2005. From The Air: Understanding Aerial Archaeology. Tempus, Stroud. (attempts to ‘demystify’ what we do – includes a certain amount of theory, consideration of subjectivity and bias)

History, development and scope of archaeological aerial photography (in very general terms)

  • Deuel, L, 1973. Flights into Yesterday. Harmondsworth. (a readable and almost world-wide history of aerial photography used mainly as a means of discovery. Things have changed a bit since the early 1970s.)
  • Palmer, R, 2000. A view from above: can computers help aerial survey? In G. Lock and K. Smith (eds) On the theory and practice of archaeological computing. Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 51, 107-131 . (an excuse to look backwards and forwards at many aspects of aerial survey and uses of air photos.)

Recent archaeological uses of aerial photos

  • David C. Cowley, Robin A. Standring, and Matthew J. Abicht (eds), 2010. Landscapes through the Lens: Aerial Photographs and Historic Environment. Oxbow: Oxford. (Papers using ’archival’ photographs for archaeological projects worldwide.)
  • David C. Cowley (ed.), 2011. Remote Sensing for Archaeological Heritage Management. EAC Occasional Paper 5/Occasional Publication of the Aerial Archaeology Research Group No. 3. Archaeolingua, Hungary. (A collection of papers that provide a recent view of technology and results from many forms of remote sensing.)
  • Gojda, M., (ed) 2004. Ancient Landscape, Settlement Dynamicsand Non-Destructive Archaeology: Czech research project 1997-2002. Academia: Prague. (methods and results of an extensive integrated project (aerial photography, geophysics, field walking, etc) examining the structure, continuity and change in settlements from neolithic to middle ages.)
  • Mills, J and Palmer, R. (ed), 2007. Populating Clay Landscapes. Tempus: Stroud. (A series of papers looking at problems and results from what has been regarded as ‘difficult’ soil.)
  • Nowakowski, J., Prinke, A. and Rączkowski, W., 2005. Biskupin… i co dalej? [Biskupin … and what next? Aerial photographs in Polish archaeology]. Poznan. (A series of papers giving examples of applications of aerial photography mostly in Poland but with examples from some other European countries. (In Polish with English abstracts.)
  • Palmer, R and Cowley, D. 2010. Interpreting Aerial Imagery – developing best practice, in Stefano Campana, Maurizio Forte and Claudia Liuzza (eds), 2010. Space, Time, Place. Third International Conference on Remote Sensing in Archaeology, 17th-21st August 2009, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India. BAR -S2118, 129-135. (Arguing the need for people who use aerial images to know what they are doing.)

Lidar and hyperspectral sensors (refs in these will take you to earlier publications)

  • Papers by Powlesland, Risbøl, Sittler and Heinzel in Campana, S, Forte, M and Liuzza, C (eds), 2010. Space, Time, Place. Third International Conference on Remote Sensing in Archaeology, 17th-21st August 2009, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India. BAR International Series 2118.
  • Crutchley, S. 2010. The Light Fantastic: using airborne lidar in archaeological survey. English Heritage. Free download: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/light-fantastic/
  • Doneus M. and Briese C., 2006. Full-waveform airborne laser scanning as a tool for archaeological reconnaissance. In: Campana S., Forte M. (eds.), From Space to Place. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Remote Sensing in Archaeology. BAR International Series 1568, 99-106.

Satellite imagery and archaeology

  • Martin Fowler has a running series of updates in AARGnews (issue 9 onwards. Past issues – but not the most recent – can be freely accessed at http://aarg.univie.ac.at/ and click AARGnews)
  • See also Andrew Sherratt’s use of satellite images at: http://www.archatlas.dept.shef.ac.uk
  • US declassified imagery and other stuff: http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov (includes Cold War CORONA material which has been useful to archaeologists working in (eg) the Near East.)

*… and, of course, worldwide cover on Google Earth which mixes Landsat (28.5m resolution) and QuickBird (c.1.0m res) satellite images with aerial photos (such as currently of Cambridgeshire and some other English counties): earth.google.com/
And the Microsoft equivalent: http://www.bing.com/maps/
Discussed in:
Beck, A., 2006. Google Earth and World Wind: remote sensing for the masses? Antiquity 80: http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/beck/

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