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Research & Development
Bournemouth University Studentship 2008 - Lidar & Archaeological Feature Identification
Project Title:
Technical development of lidar for identifying archaeological features within prehistoric landscapes
Background to research
Archaeological investigations are increasingly carried out on a landscape level. The large scale nature of these studies means that traditional prospecting methods, such as field walking and geophysical survey, are not practical for large area coverage. Furthermore, the ephemeral nature of many monuments on prehistoric landscapes has frequently made these types of sites difficult to survey as such monuments have a subtle expression at the landscape surface. There is increasing interest and uptake within archaeology in the use of airborne LiDAR data to identify new sites and monitor existing sites that have been subjected to disturbance or are covered by vegetation. To-date the technique and means for analysis have largely been developed in other disciplines such as environmental monitoring and for military purposes. Archaeologists have predominantly been reliant on wholesale transfer of tools and techniques, and yet archaeological information in airborne LiDAR data would, for the most part, be considered as noise in the processing algorithms developed. There is a distinct need and opportunity to critically evaluate the use of these types of data and to develop bespoke algorithms which are tailored to meet the analytical needs of archaeology.
This project has a two fold set of aims; the first is to examine how the nature of LiDAR data acquisition and pre-processing influences the archaeological information content in derived products (e.g. Digital Surface Models), and the second is to develop processing and analysis techniques to amplify the archaeological signal present in the data and separate this from the ‘noise’ of modern features, vegetation and even topography. The overall objective is therefore to demonstrate proof of concept for LiDAR as a technology within archaeology, to develop the necessary analytical techniques, and ultimately increase our ability to interpret landscape scale archaeology.
The overall hypothesis being tested is that airborne LiDAR will enable increased identification of subtle prehistoric archaeological features at a landscape level that could not be detected by any other means at such a large scale.
Outstanding Applicants
We are looking for outstanding applicants who will preferably have a good first degree (first or upper-second class) and/or or Master degree or an appropriate level of achievement.
Supervisory Team & Research Environment
School – Conservation Sciences
Research Centre – Centre for Archaeology, Anthropology & Heritage
First supervisor – Dr Kate Welham
Additional supervisors – Dr Ross Hill & Dr Andy Ford
Recent publications by supervisors relevant to this project –
- Parker Pearson, M., Cleal, R., Marshall, P., Needham, Pollard, J., Richards, C., Ruggles, C., Sheridan, A., Thomas, J., Tilley, C., Welham, K. et al (2007) The Age of Stonehenge, Antiquity 81 617-39.
- Parker Pearson, M., Pollard, J., Richards, C., Thomas, J., Tilley, C., Albarella, U., & Welham, K., (2006) Materializing Stonehenge, Journal of Material Culture, 11 (1-2), 227-261.
- Gaveau D.L.A. and Hill, R.A. (2001) Validation of an automated method to derive the topography of woodland floors from dual-return airborne laser scanning data
- Proceedings of the 1st Annual Meeting of the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society; Geomatics, Earth Observation and the Information Society, 12-14 September 2001 (London., UK).
- Hill, R.A. & Veitch, N. (2002) Landscape visualisation: rendering a virtual reality simulation from airborne laser altimetry and multi-spectral scanning data. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 23, 3307-3309.
- Hill, R.A., Smith, G.M., Fuller, R.M., & Veitch, N. (2002) Landscape modelling using integrated airborne multi-spectral and elevation data. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 23, 2327-2334.
How to Apply
Information on how to apply can be found on the website
