Automatic Detection of Lusatian Culture Fortified Settlement Based on Data From Airborne Laser Scanning

Abstract

During the first decade of the 21st century, airborne laser scanning became the subject of research for many works in the field of archaeology, which considered the impact and utility of this remote sensing method in archaeological research and focused on its applicability. Today, in addition to other methods used in archaeological work, aerial scanning helps archaeologists understand historical communities and document their activities based on material remains that have survived to this day. Very importantly, research can also take place in forest areas because of the ability of airborne laser scanning to penetrate the forest cover and record the topography of the area. This paper examines the problem of identifying archaeological objects – Grodzisko (fortified settlement), located in Poland, using data from airborne aerial scanning. Various methods of advanced object analysis were presented, i.e., SVF, Slope, TPI and TRI. The acquired images made it possible to carry out identification of remnants of human activity in the past. It was decided to combine the resulting images obtained from the various analyses and perform automatic detection of the fortified settlement. Documentation from previous archaeological investigations was used to verify the results. The accuracy was assessed based on the confusion matrix, where the correctness of the automatic detection of the fortified settlement was at the level of 93% agreement.