AERIAL
ARCHAEOLOGY - A BROAD OVERVIEW
DEFINITION & AIMS |
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Aerial archaeology is a discipline aiming to provide wide-area, high-altitude surveys of landscapes, record newly-obtained data, photographically document buried and visible parts of the cultural landscape, and further process them pursuant to the needs of scientific research and the protection of the cultural heritage. |
is a term integrating a number of activities including
This term is often replaced by others indicating specific activities within the discipline, such as aerial survey (reconnaissance, prospection), aerial photography, photointerpretation, rectification, and the creation of archaeological maps.
(prospection + monitoring + photography) is in certain circumstances an extremely effective (i.e. relatively fast, of good quality, complex and non-destructive) means of gaining information about wholly or partly buried archaeological structures.
Information about buried landscapes obtained by prospection bear an historic witness to the character and extent of human activity from prehistory to the present. The vast majority of traces of these activities will never be investigated by classic archaeological excavation, and thus this work has its own special character.
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(The evaluation of processed data - mapping for the needs of specific study aims)
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The identification of quantitatively (formally) new types of archaeological features partially or wholly beneath the ground surface. The exposure of the presence or absence of archaeological features known from other (e.g. European) territories, which may aid in the comparison of prehistoric developmental currents in such territories. The identification of new, hitherto unknown, settlement sites in defined regions (research into settlement geography). The resolution of questions regarding the relationship of settlement sites to the natural environment and to settlement patterns, and within such patterns the study of continuity and discontinuity of settlement locations etc. The pictorial documentation of data obtained by aerial survey. The cartographic processing of data obtained by aerial prospection and documented by photographs or on film. The identification of positive archaeological data from media not created with a view to archaeological interests (e.g. vertical photographs taken during the creation of tourist or military maps etc.). |
