High‐resolution airborne Light Detection and Ranging data, ethics and archaeology: Considerations from the northeastern United States

Abstract

Publicly available Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) datasets have become widely accessible in the northeastern United States and beyond in the past 10 years. The increase in dataset availability and accessibility coupled with a number of publications detailing the types of cultural features that can be identified has made it necessary to explore and discuss positive impacts and risks to cultural features on this landscape. Access to detailed, documented locations of archaeological resources at state or federal agencies in the United States is typically limited to those with certain credentials, yet many locations of features and sites, both documented and undocumented, are now available to anyone who can access these datasets and effectively interpret them. This presents a challenge for cultural resource management professionals and the field of archaeology; for while LiDAR datasets have had many positive impacts, it is not yet obvious what the unintended impacts of feature exposure might be. Risks to sites are worth considering in the northeastern United States, where (1) region‐wide LiDAR data are publicly available and accessible, (2) many cultural features are widely accessible and not well monitored and (3) case studies have been published that provide guidance on how to identify specific types of cultural landscape features using LiDAR data. We discuss the nuances of those topics here, provide examples of how the datasets have impacted archaeology in the northeastern United States and explore possible mitigation strategies to maintain data accessibility while also protecting important cultural features in this region.

Ten simple rules for working with high resolution remote sensing data

“…Other examples include sharing locations of archeological sites (VanValkenburgh and Dufton 2020;Fisher et al 2021;Johnson et al 2021), sacred and historic sites of burial or worship (Davis et al 2021), medicine and public health (Howe III and Elenberg 2020), nesting sites of endangered species (Fretwell, Scofield, and Phillips 2017), and the movement of military assets (Livingston and Robinson 2003).…”

Estimating Historically Cleared and Forested Land in Massachusetts, USA, Using Airborne LiDAR and Archival Records

“…The stone wall and RCH datasets analyzed and included in this contribution were digitized by different users over the span of several years and then edited to maintain quality. Digitized datasets may have errors associated with LiDAR dataset quality (see [66] and above discussion) or user interpretation [67]. Experienced and novice mappers may consistently over-or under-map depending on their preferences and confidence in identifying features in a LiDAR DEM [67].…”