Integrating Satellite, UAV, and Ground-Based Remote Sensing in Archaeology: An Exploration of Pre-Modern Land Use in Northeastern Iraq

Abstract

Satellite remote sensing is well demonstrated to be a powerful tool for investigating ancient land use in Southwest Asia. However, few regional studies have systematically integrated satellite-based observations with more intensive remote sensing technologies, such as drone-deployed multispectral sensors and ground-based geophysics, to explore off-site areas. Here, we integrate remote sensing data from a variety of sources and scales including historic aerial photographs, modern satellite imagery, drone-deployed sensors, and ground-based geophysics to explore pre-modern land use along the Upper Diyala/Sirwan River in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Our analysis reveals an incredible diversity of land use features, including canals, qanats, trackways, and field systems, most of which likely date to the first millennium CE, and demonstrate the potential of more intensive remote sensing methods to resolve land use features. Our results align with broader trends across ancient Southwest Asia that document the most intensive land use in the first millennium BCE through the first millennium CE. Land use features dating to the earlier Bronze Age (fourth through second millennium BCE) remain elusive and will likely require other investigative approaches.

Embedding the remote sensing monitoring of archaeological site damage at the local level: Results from the “Archaeological practice and heritage protection in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq” project

“…Flat sites and lithic scatters form an important part of the archaeological understanding and cultural heritage in the region [ 57 ], and ongoing and future work in the region is already making more concerted efforts to document these sites and their threats. Recent studies across the KRI have shown that UAVs and UAV-deployed sensors can be successfully used to document these otherwise difficult to detect sites and other associated archaeological features [ 17 , 57 – 60 ].…”

“…The project’s archaeological site monitoring component developed out of the work of the Sirwan Regional Project (SRP) [ 13 ], a regional archaeological survey and excavation project located in the Garmian region of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) [ 14 – 17 ] ( Fig 1 ). Starting from August 2018, SRP researchers trained and subsequently supported a funded, full-time Cultural Heritage Monitoring Officer and other archaeologists working for the Garmian Directorate of Antiquities and the Garmian Civilization Museum to allow them to take over the satellite remote sensing and the field-based aspects of archaeological site monitoring and condition assessment, previously carried out by the SRP team.…”

A Review on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Remote Sensing: Platforms, Sensors, Data Processing Methods, and Applications

“…Based on a LIDAR point cloud and image data collected by UAVs, the authors were able to reconstruct an ancient village in three dimensions. Laugier et al [192] proposed an archaeological remote sensing method based on multiple data sources. Based on various data sources, such as aerial remote sensing images, satellite remote sensing images, and drone remote sensing images, the authors conducted a remote sensing survey of pre-modern land use information in the Irwan Valley of Iraq.…”

Non-Invasive Survey Techniques to Study Nuragic Archaeological Sites: The Nanni Arrù Case Study (Sardinia, Italy)

“…The integration of data from satellite observation, drone-deployed sensors, and geophysical methods has been carried out in some archaeological studies [19][20][21][22][23][24].…”