box kite. And between 1919 and 1921, there occurred the first systematic application of aerial photography by European and American archaeologists, working in mesopotamia and the Cahokia Mounds, Illinois, respectively.

Since many archaeological sites leave no traces detectable at ground level but can produce distinctive soil patterns that are easily discernible from the air, archaeologists saw the clear advantages that aerial photography offered and readily embraced this new tool. The decade of the 1920s witnessed a boom in the use of aerial photography in archaeology. In 1925, Poidebard traced ancient caravan routes that led to Roman fortifications in Syria, and alfred kidder and Charles Lindbergh photographed a series of archaeological sites while flying over the Yucatán Peninsula and the American Southwest.

The onset of World War II in Europe not only did not stop the use of aerial photography, it virtually furthered its development. For obvious reasons, aerial photography was perfected during this period, both by technological innovations in aircraft and cameras and by further developments in its interpretative principles. In this process archaeologists played a leading role; some, such as glyn daniel, were even recruited by the military as photo interpreters.

The success of these early ventures and the developments in the technique that followed World War II secured a place for aerial photography in archaeology. However, the differences between the European and North American academic traditions, along with differences in the nature of the archaeological sites per se, resulted in very distinct approaches in the use of this new method of archaeological survey. European archaeologists were more concerned with a classical-historical approach and centered their efforts on site detection. North American archaeologists, on the other hand, who by this time had been greatly influenced by julian steward’s cultural-environmental approach, put the emphasis on more regional approaches.

These theoretical orientations had an important effect on the preferred method of aerial photography that was adopted. In Europe, where the main interest was the architectural characteristics of spectacular sites, oblique photography was favored because of the better perspective that it produced. This method assisted European archaeologists in the discovery of thousands of sites throughout the countryside. In the Americas, where archaeologists put greater emphasis on anthropological issues such as subsistence activities, vertical photography was the preferred method because it facilitated regional mapping in which the location of archaeological sites was considered in relation to resource areas. Examples of this type of project are Ralph Solecki’s 1952 Missouri River survey and gordon willey’s 1953 seminal settlement pattern study of the virú valley in peru.

But interpreting aerial photography to locate sites and/or resource areas is just the initial stage in archaeological research. Regardless of the method applied—oblique or vertical photography—the archaeologists’ final intent is to map the features that are of relevance to their research. The application of reliable methods to measure the observed features with the intent of producing a map is a subject covered by photogrammetry. Through the application of the principles of photogrammetry, the photo interpreter can quantify—in terms of location and extent—the interpreted features on the surface of the earth. Thus, the quantification process complements the information obtained by the initial interpretation and is geared toward identifying what features are present in the photograph, where they are on the ground, and over what areal extent.

With the advent of more sophisticated methods of remote sensing, such as satellite and radar imagery, the new developments in aerial photography technology have centered more on photogrammetry computer applications, image enhancing, and digital photography. Nevertheless, because of its lower cost, greater scale, and extensive coverage, the traditional black-and-white aerial photography still remains a favored methodological tool in archaeological research.

Satellite and Radar Imagery

Remote sensing from space has its origins with the development of the first meteorological satellites, which in 1960 transmitted back to earth the first coarse images of the earth’s surface