Potential of airborne LiDAR data in detecting cultural landscape features in Slovakia

Lieskovský, Juraj; Lieskovský, Tibor; Hladíková, Katarína; Štefunková, Dagmar; Hurajtová, N.

doi:10.1080/01426397.2022.2045923

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 107 publications

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“…The study revealed that the intense mining and quick-lime production activities were organized at the level of families coming from the adjacent villages (Ștefan et al 2021). Prehistoric terraces in the Sitno or Tribec mountains and mining landscapes in the alpine parts of Low Tatra mountains (Slovakia) are the subject of ongoing research (Lieskovský et al 2022).…”

Section: Figure 1 Morphological Types Of Archaeological Features Dete...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Airborne LiDAR in Mountain Archaeology

Lozić,

Štular

2024

The Oxford Handbook of Mountain Archaeology

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Airborne LiDAR, or airborne Light Detection and Ranging, is a remote sensing technique that measures, among other things, the terrain elevation. In the past two decades, it has become an indispensable component of landscape archaeology, especially for archaeological prospection. However, it is still infrequently used in mountain archaeology. This is especially true in the high mountains, where technical challenges make its use difficult. We can anticipate more successful applications in the future due to the ever-improving quality of data. At present, the greatest untapped potential of LiDAR data for mountain archaeology, we argue, lies in ‘deep’ interpretation or analysis of archaeological features in their landscape context. This approach is illustrated by the case study Vodotočnik (Slovenia). We used this high-mountain pasture to test the hypothesis for site location choice, which was put forward by experienced mountain archaeologists. Based on the results of six distinct geomorphometric analyses, we reinterpreted the site and demonstrated the benefits of LiDAR data for modelling landscape context at the scale of individual buildings and activity areas.

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Section: Figure 1 Morphological Types Of Archaeological Features Dete...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Airborne LiDAR in Mountain Archaeology

Lozić,

Štular

2024

The Oxford Handbook of Mountain Archaeology

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LiDAR Applications in Archaeology: A Systematic Review

Vinci,

Vanzani,

Fontana

et al. 2024

Archaeological Prospection

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In the last two decades, the analysis of data derived from LiDAR (light detection and ranging) technology has dramatically changed the investigation and documentation of past cultural landscapes, sometimes revealing monumental architectures and settlement systems totally unknown before. Despite the exponential uptick of case studies, an extensive review of LiDAR applications in archaeology is so far missing. Here, we present a systematic survey of works published in international journals in 2001–2022, with the aim of providing an annotated bibliography on the theme and collect quantitative information about each case study. Data collected allowed to analyse the geographic distribution of LiDAR‐based studies, the specifics of acquisitions, the topography and vegetation cover of each study area, the characteristics of the material culture detected, major goals and integrated techniques. The survey considers 291 studies, of which 167 located in Europe, 104 in the Americas and only 20 between Asia, Middle East, Oceania and Africa. Our analysis shows that the impact of LiDAR in archaeological studies was greater in some areas of Europe and North America, where scholars could rely on the availability of open data provided by the institutions. This is testified by the higher number of both case studies and large‐scale projects investigating these regions. It also emerges that LiDAR potential largely depends on the characteristics of the material culture, the vegetation cover and data resolution. These factors underlie the outstanding results achieved through LiDAR in tropical rainforests compared to those obtained in temperate areas, such as the Mediterranean, where the outcropping archaeological evidence, albeit vast and widespread, is generally less preserved and obscured by the dense vegetation of the Mediterranean maquis. We conclude that the increasing availability of LiDAR data over vast areas could lead to enormous advances in the investigation, monitoring and protection of the cultural heritage.

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Archaeological LiDAR in Mediterranean Karst Landscapes. A Multiproxy Dating Method for Archaeological Landscape and a Case Study From Prehistoric Kras Plateau (Slovenia)

Lozić,

Štular

2024

Archaeological Prospection

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The case study area is a small but typical prehistoric landscape in the Kras Plateau on the north coast of the central Mediterranean. The Late Bronze and Iron Age Kras Plateau was an emblematic Mediterranean archaeological landscape dotted with numerous hillforts. Since the mid‐20th century, the landscape had been overgrown with some of the most archaeology‐hostile vegetation, severely impeding landscape archaeology until archaeological LiDAR revealed thousands of archaeological features that attest to a carefully constructed and managed agro‐pastoral landscape. However, these discoveries were hampered by insecure chronology typical of any LiDAR guided analysis. This case study meticulously documented two prehistoric hillforts and a previously unknown agro‐pastoral landscape with hundreds of archaeological features. The focus of the article, however, was on establishing a more precise and objective dating method. We proposed a multiproxy method to date the archaeological landscape. It combines relative dating using remote sensing data and historical maps; dating based on historical context; relative stratigraphic dating; indirect dating based on associated archaeological finds; and dating by association. Particularly, we focused on the association‐based dating of archaeological features. We proposed a method based on the concept of taskscapes that relies on kernel density estimation. Using these methods, we objectively demonstrated that agro‐pastoral landscape features documented with archaeological LiDAR were contemporaneous with Late Bronze Age and Iron Age hillforts and have no connection to the post‐medieval landscape. The latter has important methodological implications for the prehistoric archaeology of Mediterranean karst landscapes, where backdating post‐Medieval landscapes is a common practise.

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Potential of airborne LiDAR data in detecting cultural landscape features in Slovakia

Cited by 7 publications

References 107 publications

Airborne LiDAR in Mountain Archaeology

Airborne LiDAR in Mountain Archaeology

LiDAR Applications in Archaeology: A Systematic Review

Archaeological LiDAR in Mediterranean Karst Landscapes. A Multiproxy Dating Method for Archaeological Landscape and a Case Study From Prehistoric Kras Plateau (Slovenia)

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