Google Archeology: Satellite Imagery is Helping Us Discover the Past

History is a passion of many, myself included, and the natural corollary to history is archeology.

Aerial photography has been used since World War I where it was used to spot enemy patrols and encampments. Since then aerial photos have been used to locate long lost archeological sites, waiting to be rediscovered.

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 his gut, he looked for other patches of similarly bright vegetation on other NASA maps.

Sever managed to find several other archaeological sites on the maps that had hitherto been overlooked.

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.

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 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 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?

Comments

[Daniel Appleton]

This sounds cool. Not only will the archeological & anthropological communities benefit from this, but it will democratize ( ? ) archeology in a way so that anybody can see new & existing archeological finds without having to visit a hot, sticky, sweaty jungle, an arid, potentially hazardous, unforgiving desert, or descend to the depths of the ocean to find temples, cities, tombs, shipwrecks & such.

It won't pack the punch or the adrenaline surge of going on a dig in person, but the thrill of witnessing a potential discovery or viewing an existing site using remote means is no small thing either.

This is much the same as astronomy sites that post real time footage or archived images from telescopes for people who can't afford or use conventional telescopes. I think the comparison is valid, because these worlds & regions would be inaccesible to some people.

[jahan karim]

i want to try for find old archeological region and i want to can see anderground above 10metan you help me for this technology
beside i can find old source with sponcer in iran or alon