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Regional-Scale Archaeological Remote Sensing in the Age of Big Data: Automated Site Discovery vs. Brute Force Methods
Abstract
With the ever expanding quantity of high-resolution aerial and satellite imagery available to archaeologists, numerous researchers have sought to address this “big data” challenge by developing automated methods to aid in the discovery and mapping of archaeological sites and features. This paper reviews several notable efforts to create automated discovery tools, including both spectral and object-based approaches, and highlights the difficulties these projects have encountered. Arguing instead for the critically important role of a human analyst in archaeological discovery, I illustrate interim results of an ongoing project that utilizes CORONA satellite imagery to document previously unknown sites in a 300,000 km 2 study area in the northern Fertile Crescent. The project is based on what I term “brute force” methods, relying on systematic exploration of imagery by trained analysts, and has now successfully created a database of more than 14,000 sites, some 10,000 of which are previously undocumented. Results of the project highlight the need for human intervention to make any archaeological discovery meaningful, suggesting that imagery analysis, like any act of archaeological investigation, requires an engaged, thoughtful and creative scholar.
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The most effective machine learning programs are still outperformed by teams of experts manually combing through large volumes of high resolution satellite imagery.
“However, these types of automated satellite surveys have a number of limitations, and previous research demonstrates that the most effective machine learning programs are still outperformed by teams of experts manually combing through large volumes of high resolution satellite imagery [28, 29].”
From Unstructured satellite survey detects up to 20% of archaeological sites in coastal valleys of southern Peru (2024) · cites this paper as [29]
'Brute force' and automated approaches are time and resource intensive, often beyond the scope of research budgets.
“While ‘brute force’ and automated approaches offer distinct advantages for discovering archaeological sites in high resolution satellite imagery, they are also time and resource intensive–often beyond the scope of research budgets [29, 33, 34].”
From Unstructured satellite survey detects up to 20% of archaeological sites in coastal valleys of southern Peru (2024) · cites this paper as [29]
Structured surveys yield more easily interpreted results.
“Structured surveys thus yield more easily interpreted results [29].”
From Unstructured satellite survey detects up to 20% of archaeological sites in coastal valleys of southern Peru (2024) · cites this paper as [29]
Casana (2014) demonstrates that the most effective form of satellite survey is the 'brute force' approach.
“Casana (2014) convincingly demonstrates that the most effective form of satellite survey is what they term the ‘brute force’ approach–a team of experts painstaking reviewing high volumes of satellite imagery, though their study did quantify detection rates [29].”
From Unstructured satellite survey detects up to 20% of archaeological sites in coastal valleys of southern Peru (2024) · cites this paper as [29]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Casana, J.
- Venue
- Advances in Archaeological Practice
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2014-08
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 222-233
- ISSN
- 2326-3768
- Cited by
- 60
- References
- 0
- Language
- en
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