Search

In the southern Levant, fundamental changes in economic organization, mortuary practices, and settlement patterns took place during the 5th to early 4th millennium b.c.e., or the Chalcolithic period (ca. 4500–3700/3600 b.c.e.). Our best evidence derives from sites in the Negev, and to a lesser degree, the Jordan Valley and Golan Heights, and the mortuary sites along the coast. The goal of the Galilee Prehistory Project is to examine this period based on information from a different environmental region, by undertaking survey and excavation in the Galilee, a region with virtually no radiocarbon dates or plans derived from Chalcolithic sites. The multi-faceted investigation of the Wadi el-Ashert included unpiloted aerial vehicle fly-overs during different seasons, geophysical and pedestrian survey, and methodical sub-surface test sampling. The comprehensive approach to this prehistoric landscape resulted in a more nuanced understanding of the site.

In the last few years Unpiloted Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, have been widely adopted by archaeologists as an important tool for archaeological survey, excavation recording, and heritage site management. As the technology has improved and costs plummeted, it has become possible to record increasingly large areas at high resolution. Now that drones are a common part of the archaeological toolkit, there is increasing interest in affordable ways to improve accuracy and survey efficiency in the field. This paper presents quantifiable results comparing multiple strategies for drone data collection from a local test site in New Hampshire, as well as a pair of examples of deploying such systems in the field. Results demonstrate low-cost methods using DIY-style drones and Post Processed Kinematic GNSS data recording can increase fieldwork efficiency and produce high-resolution ortho-imagery with better than decimeter accuracy without the need for ground control. These will be critical improvements for archaeologists working with limited budgets or with limited access to sites.

Locating the subtle and uneven deposition of human activities across the landscape continues to challenge archaeologists. Existing tools (e.g. excavation, shovel testing, pedestrian survey, and terrestrial geophysics) have proven effective at locating many types of archaeological features but remain time-consuming and difficult to undertake on densely vegetated or topographically complex terrain. As a result of these limitations, key aspects of past communities remain largely outside of archaeological detection and interpretation. This flattening of past lifeways not only affects broader understandings of these communities, but can also negatively impact the preservation of archaeological sites. This paper presents the detection of archaeological features through an analysis of drone-acquired thermal, multispectral, and visible light imagery, alongside historical aerial photography, in the area surrounding Middle Grant Creek (11WI2739), a late prehistoric village located at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in Will County, IL. Our investigations discovered a probable housing area and a ritual enclosure, increasing the area of the site from 3.4 ha to 20 ha. The proposed housing and ritual areas of this village also help contextualize finds from the ongoing archaeological excavations at Middle Grant Creek. More broadly, results demonstrate the valuable contributions that these relatively new archaeological survey methods have in shaping our understandings of the archaeological landscape and highlight the importance of integrating them into the archaeological toolkit.

Major cultural transformations took place in the southern Levant during the late prehistoric periods (ca. mid-seventh through fourth millenna B.C.E.). General syntheses rarely include more than cursory mention of the more arid regions of the southern Levant (Negev, eastern and southern Jordan). The Eastern Badia Archaeological Project [EBAP] study area comprises a west–east transect across the southern part of the eastern badia, selected to include a variety of ecological zones. To date, this field research project has focused on two primary study areas in the Black Desert in Jordan's panhandle: Wisad Pools and Wadi al-Qattafi. In both areas, excavation combined with pedestrian and aerial survey record an apparent florescence of building and intensive exploitation of the landscape that contradicts previous assumptions that the region was used only intermittently by late prehistoric people. The many substantial well-constructed Late Neolithic buildings, evidence for trees and marshy plants, and extensive systems of kites seem to suggest that, rather than a virtually empty region, the Black Desert was once rich in animals, plants and people.

Drones, or Unpiloted Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), are quickly changing approaches to archaeological mapping. They are effective tools for documenting smaller ancient features that might be missed by the resolution limitations of satellite imagery. As part of the Eastern Badia Archaeological Project, this article presents the preliminary results of a large-scale aerial survey of Wadi al-Qattafi, Jordan undertaken to map the kites and smaller features concentrated around and on top of the basalt mesas in the area. A combination of fixed and rotary wing aircraft was used to record approximately 20,000 images across 32 square kilometers of the survey area. The resulting orthophotographs and digital elevation models (DEMs) provide a high-resolution recording of the landscape. Ultimately this allows for mapping and identification of even the smallest anthropogenic features, as well as an analysis of how larger features were constructed to utilize local topography.

A rapidly expanding array of innovative technologies, combined with traditional techniques, allow more sophisticated photographic and photogrammetric techniques to document and analyze archaeological features, sites, and landscapes. With multiple ways to put a camera aloft over archaeological sites and landscapes, aerial photographs are more than a “bird's eye view.” Over five seasons at the Chalcolithic Period (c. 4500–3700 b.c.e.) site of Marj Rabba in the lower Galilee of Israel, a variety of tools were used to record the excavations, the survey, and the landscape. Satellites, historical aerial photographic archives, fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicles, rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles, poles, and terrestrial hand-held photography and photogrammetry, are combined in order to comprehensively record multiple facets of this early settlement.

•Technological overview for conducting low-cost, drone-based lidar survey in archaeology.•Discusses opportunities and challenges of data collection, processing, and analysis.•Presents results from case studies at sites in Hawai’i, Colorado, and New Hampshire.•Results show potential and pitfalls of drone-based lidar survey with available technologies.