In consequence of a long tradition, archaeologists focus on individual sites and features and not landscape itself. We propose to perceive the landscape as a taskscapes, a space where tasks are performed, by that its own identity is created. Airborne remote sensing methods establish a possibility of studies on a larger scale of and to perceive places as context for landscapes and vice versa. On the other hand we would like to draw attention to identification of paleoenvironment features in the context of past landscapes. Although it is not always possible to determine the relationship between these element and traces of past human activities, we must be aware that in the past they had and influence on human behavior. In this paper will address the question: how much do airborne remote sensing data through the ability to change the scale of our perspective upon archaeological sites and their local landscapes alter or enrich interpretation of the context of past human activities.
Years of experience in air-photo interpretations provide us to conclusion that we know what we are looking at, we know why we can see cropmarks, we even can estimate, when are the best opportunities to observe them. But even today cropmarks may be a subject of misinterpretation or wishful thinking. The same problems appear when working with aerial photographs, satellite imageries, ALS, geophysics, etc.
In the paper we present several case studies based on data acquired for and within ArchEO - archaeological applications of Earth Observation techniques project to discuss complexity and consequences of archaeological interpretations. While testing usefulness of satellite imagery in Poland on various types of sites, cropmarks were the most frequent indicators of past landscapes as well as archaeological and natural features. Hence, new archaeological sites have been discovered mainly thanks to cropmarks. This situation has given us an opportunity to test not only satellite imageries as a source of data but also confront them with results of other non-invasive methods of data acquisition.
When working with variety of data we have met several issues which raised problems of interpretation. Consequently, questions related to the cognitive value of remote sensing data appear and should be discussed. What do the data represent? To what extent the imageries, cropmarks or other visualizations represent the past? How should we deal with ambiguity of data? What can we learn from pitfalls in the interpretation of cropmarks, soilmarks etc. to share more Sherlock’s methodology rather than run around Don Quixote’s delusions?
In our paper we would like to present a remote sensing perspective on damage assessment of a hill-fort from central Poland, which is a listed site. The lime stone from this hill is known for its quality and has been excavated from at least medieval time. Due to poorly performed walking prospections the extent of the site has been faultily drawn and the whole extent of the site has been detected. Although most of it is being protected by and natural-archaeological reserve, some part are still being quarried. The goal of our study was to assess the damage done to the landscape of the Chełmo Mount. In our research we will investigate two types of data: very high resolution satellite imagery and LiDAR data (and its derivatives). Supervised classification and thematic change detection applied on archival satellite imagery enabled us to evaluate the progression of quarry in time. The DTM derived from LiDAR data, brought us the possibility to mark the potential outline of the site and the area to be protected as well as a 3D insight in to the damage done to the landscape itself.
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