The combined use of air photographs and free satellite imagery as auxiliary tools in preliminary archaeological exploration: potential and limitations
The combined use of air photographs and free satellite imagery as auxiliary tools in preliminary archaeological exploration: potential and limitations

Summary/Abstract: This paper brings into the attention of the academic community a series of methodological aspects that we considered of a possible general interest, deriving from our own practical application of aerial photography and satellite imagery within three distinct archaeological survey projects that we conducted during the last decade on three different geo-cultural regions of Mexico. We try to emphasise what works and what doesn’t within the realm of the aerial and satellite imagery employed during pioneering explorations aimed to identify new archaeological sites in natural settings that pose a number of challenges and obstacles to the photo-interpretation. In the ravished jungles of south-western Yucatan Peninsula we identified several Mayan settlements by stereoscopy, as the dominant archaeological feature is the mound. In the mountains and deserts of Aguascalientes, central-northern Mexico, air photos and Google Earth proved almost useless in most of the cases, but precious in valuing landscape changes. In the arid deserts of northern Zacatecas, air photos and satellite imagery acted weakly in the actual identification of hunter-gatherer campsites, but turned crucially important in the identification and monitoring of geo-spatial units and paleo-landforms hosting ancient human occupations probably since the end of Pleistocene.

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