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

Canada Free Press ^ | Thursday, January 10, 2008 | Joshua Hill

[SunkenCiv]

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 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... 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 Canales, settled around 2000 BC in the Arenal area of Costa Rica... 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... [and] 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 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.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Renfield, I believe you sent me this link, or a very similar one. If not, thanks anyway, you've sent me plenty of good links lately. It appears that the one I'm using was, uh, highly similar to something in Cosmos magazine, and written by Jacqui Hayes.

[SunkenCiv]

try a search on Angkor Wat (or visit the GGG digest topic) for more on this technique. I also recall that sat data has been used to track down old settlements and roads in Syria.

Ancient Welsh city found
News Wales | 14 Aug 2006 | News Wales
Posted on 08/15/2006 10:52:05 AM EDT by Marius3188
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1683983/posts

Ancient Egyptian City Spotted From Space
Live Science | 05 June 2007 | Heather Whipps
Posted on 06/05/2007 9:39:35 PM EDT by BGHater
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1845546/posts

[SunkenCiv]

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Renfield. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
· Google · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology magazine · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·

[ValerieTexas]

I wonder if soon they will find a way to use this imagery for locating shipwrecks.

[centurion316]

Very interesting stuff. I think that Google Earth will be turning up Jimmy Hoffa any day now.

[SunkenCiv]

First, we’ll eliminate every spot where people have claimed he was buried...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hoffa#Conviction_and_disappearance

[SunkenCiv]

I kinda wonder about using some form of passive magnetic resonance imaging.