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Google Archaeology; How Satellite Imagery is Helping us Locate the Past



History is a passion of many, myself included, and the natural friend to history is archaeology. Archaeology can shed so much light on the past, that it informs us of not just who lived there, but how they lived.

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But sadly, in a world where either humans are destroying everything around them to acquire more land for urban development, or the earth simply reclaims what was once built, archaeology is getting harder and harder. Aerial photography has been a common placed tool since World War I where it was used to spot enemy patrols and encampments. Since then however, these photos are pointing out where hidden relics are lying, just waiting to be rediscovered.

NASA’s Archaeologist

But satellite imagery takes it that one step further, with high-tech sensors allowing the camera to capture that which the human eye cannot see. Infrared and ultraviolet cameras are now taking shots over a much wider wavelength, well past the human restricted 400 to 700 nanometer range. As a result, even that which lay hidden underneath earth can be found. NASA's only archaeologist, Tom Sever once took a look at an infrared satellite image of a Mayan city in Guatemala. He was surprised to see that the vegetation showed up on the image much brighter than the vegetation did nearby, but away from the relics. Following gut instinct, he looked for other patches of similarly bright vegetation on other NASA maps. Given my gift for narrative storytelling, it isn’t hard to imagine what happened next. Sever managed to find several other sites on the maps that had hitherto been ignored for archaeological consideration. Sever’s hypothesis is that the limestone that the Mayan buildings were constructed from has leached in to the soil, subsequently altering the vegetation so that it appeared so on the satellite imagery. With this new method, archaeologists went on to discover several more Mayan cities.

NASA’s Satellite Imagery Mythbusting

Another archaeologist, Payson Sheets, a professor of archaeology at the University of Colorado, also made use of the new technology to solve a long standing mystery. Sheets’ work has revolved around the ancient village of Cañales, settled around 2000 BC in the Arenal area of Costa Rica. According to his studies, the settlement was abandoned several times due to volcanoes, but always the village was resettled; but whether by new inhabitants or the originals, he wasn’t sure. His answer too came from above, when he studied satellite imagery of the area. Faint lines were revealed to him stretching from the village to the nearby cemetery which, when he turned up in person, turned out to be ancient footpaths, later found to the oldest known footpaths. "The path from the Cañales village to the cemetery was in use over a period of some 800 years, or possibly as long as 1,100 years, interrupted twice by natural disasters from Arenal volcano," he said. "The dominating reason for relocation probably was to re-establish contact with the spirits of their deceased ancestors in their distant cemetery."

NASA or Google?

But as one can imagine, asking NASA for satellite imagery isn’t cheap, with costs sometimes reaching tens of thousands of dollars. But it’s invaluable to researchers; "I cannot imagine doing regional archaeology without good imagery from aircraft and satellites now," said Sheets. But thankfully, much to everyone’s relief, Google Earth came along and promptly solved the problem. And while the popular Google program caught on with those wanting to see where they live, whether anyone in their street has a pool for the hot days, or where they want to retire, Italian programmer Luca Mori decided that this new tool could be used for other, more constructive purposes (not that pool-hunting during the summer months isn’t constructive). Mori was able to locate a Roman villa buried beneath a riverbed, which was then later excavated by experts after Mori informed them of his discovery. American archaeologist Scott Madry, Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was lucky enough to have stumbled across a paper clipping of Mori’s exploits. Up until then, he had been struggling with an inefficient, dangerous and apparently inaccurate method of aerial surveying, and decided to hop on to his office computer. Within only a few hours, Madry was able to locate 101 features in an area covering 1,440 square kilometres in Central France. These features represented Iron Age, Medieval and Gallo-Roman sites. "I have found a very large number of sites using Google Earth from my office here in the U.S.. I was quite surprised at this, and have now given many different short courses in the U.S. and Europe for archaeologists on how to use Google Earth in their work," Madry said. "Now, with the commercial ultra-high resolution satellite imagery and especially with Google Earth, archaeologists can conduct regional site surveys from their own offices," Madry said. "This is something we would have only dreamed of before."

The End of Indiana Jones?

The next Indiana Jones movie is coming out soon, but will there one day be a YouTube parody of the new type of archaeologist? Widebrimmed hat, khaki camouflaged outfit, bullwhip in one hand revolver at his side, sitting at his computer depressed that all his effort need only be directed at Google Earth? Joshua Hill, a Geek’s-Geek from Melbourne, Australia, Josh is an aspiring author with dreams of publishing his epic fantasy, currently in the works, sometime in the next 5 years. A techie, nerd, sci-fi nut and bookworm.


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Guest Column Joshua Hill -- Bio and Archives

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