Aerial Remote Sensing Archaeology—A Short Review and Applications

Abstract

Aerial and remote sensing archaeology are tools for identifying marks on images of archaeological remains covered by soil. In other words, they are archaeological prospection tools that fall into the category of non-destructive research methods. In this paper, a short review of these valuable research tools is carried out, presenting the way marks appear, and also the categories of aerial and remote sensing archaeology, depending on the medium of storage of images and the type of platform of transfer of sensors. The timing of the emergence of each category is determined and examples of relevant surveys are presented. Focusing on the use of an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) with a multispectral sensor (aerial remote sensing archaeology), their partial utilization is revealed for collecting images in areas outside of the visible spectrum, aiming at the identification of covered archaeological remains. To this end, examples of the use of UAS with different sensors are presented and indexes that have been used so far in respective applications are gathered. Aerial remote sensing archaeology took place in two areas of particular interest in Northern Greece. UAS WingtraOne GEN II was used to collect multispectral images. In both study areas, soil and vegetation or crop marks were detected, possibly covered archaeological remains, initially in RGB orthophotomosaics and then more clearly in the index maps, such as the normalized difference vegetation index, simple ratio, brightness index, second brightness index, and anthocyanin reflectance index 2b.