AERIAL ARCHAEOLOGY - A BROAD OVERVIEW

DATA PROCESSING & STORAGE

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If the information gained by aerial archaeological survey is to be used sensibly, it must be appropriately processed, recorded and stored.The primary information obtained during aerial surveys may be stored in the following media:

Filmed material
(Digital video recordings)

Maps

GPS

Formulary records

PRIMARY DATA PROCESSING

Level 1 processing:

laboratory processing, i.e. of negatives, and the enlargement of stills from film.

Level 2 processing:

the topography of the site, with the aid of photographs, maps and form records, and topographic data from GPS.

Level 3 processing:

analysis and interpretation, rectification of oblique photographs and drawing up of (vertical) plans of the relevant site or feature.

Level 4 processing:

reading of qualitatively new data drawn from the primary information into a system designed for the storage and spatial (landscape, settlement) analysis of topographic data.

Level 5 processing:

transcription of interpreted information from aerial photographs into large-scale maps; the creation of archaeological maps, i.e. maps of prehistoric, Medieval etc. landscapes in the areas of interest.

BASIC DATA STORAGE METHODS

Traditional - aerial photograph archive	Negatives archive
	Diapositive archive
	Records archived on CD
	Video recordings archive
Modern	image database of aerial photographs with accompanying basic textual data
	textual database	Flight log database
		Negatives database
		Database of data relating to discovered sites, i.e. those documented by aerial photography
		Negatives database
		Diapositives database
		Collections database

Fig. 1. Plan of the prehistoric settlement at Rovné (Litoměřice district) derived from oblique aerial photographs. The processing of image information from pictures taken with a hand-held camera is the preserve of "rectification" carried out with specialised software (in this case, AirPhoto, developed by I. Scollar). Such processing results in a site plan to scale, i.e. its location within a geographical co-ordinate system. The degree of accuracy of this method is dependent on several factors, especially the angle of shot and terrain morphology. Enlarge

Fig. 2. The file on the site of Býkev (Mělník district) in the image (Ibase) database of the Institute of Archaeology in Prague: an example of a method of computer storage for basic pictorial and textual data. Enlarge

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