From the Air Understanding Aerial Archaeology

by Brophy, Kenneth; Cowley, Dave

• ISBN13: 9780752431307
• ISBN10: 0752431307
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-07-01
• Publisher: Tempus

Summary

Aerial photography is one of the most important and cost- effective ways of recording traces of the past and discovering new sites. It also offers the archaeologist an alternative viewpoint on these archaeological traces, and is one of the most exciting and challenging types of fieldwork. The experiences of the contributors to this volume highlight the role that bias, subjectivity and perception play in the shaping of flights and in the results themselves. They draw on important aspects of archaeological fieldwork such as experience, intuition, improvisation, emotion and stress, which are all too often left unarticulated. These contributions from the practitioners, photographers and interpreters that from the aerial archaeological community present a counterpoint to the traditional textbook.

Author Biography

Kenneth Brophy is a lecturer in archaeology at the University of Glasgow

Table of Contents

Contributors	6	(3)
Acknowledgements	9	(1)
Abbreviations and acronyms used in the text	10	(1)
From the air -- an introduction	11	(13)
Kenneth Brophy
David C. Cowley
The pregnant jewel: on the track of the past	24	(9)
Gordon S. Maxwell
Subjectivity, bias and perception in aerial archaeology	33	(17)
Kenneth Brophy
Some observations on the nature of aerial survey	50	(14)
David C. Cowley
Simon M. D. Gilmour
Bias in aerial reconnaissance	64	(9)
David R. Wilson
Sun, sand and see: creating bias in the archaeological record	73	(13)
W.S. Hanson
The advantages of bias in Roman studies	86	(8)
Rebecca H. Jones
`If they used their own photographs they wouldn't take them like that'	94	(23)
Rog Palmer
Bias and the world of the vertical aerial photograph	117	(10)
Jessica Mills
Recording upland landscapes: a personal account from Northumberland	127	(14)
Tim Gates
Patterns of aerial photography in the Central Midlands of England: evaluating biases in past programmes of aerial reconnaissance and their potential impact	141	(10)
Matthew Oakey
Tradition in power: vicious circle(s) of aerial survey in Poland	151	(17)
Wlodek Raczkowski
Using photography in archaeology	168	(19)
Andrew Baines
Index	187