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Aerial Archaeology

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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

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State of Knowledge and Current Debates

Aerial archaeology (AA) uses photographs, and other kinds of image acquisition, in archaeological field research. It involves taking photographs of the land from above, examining them for pertinent information, interpreting the images seen there and making the resulting data available in a variety of forms to develop archaeological knowledge about past people and the conservation of archaeological sites and landscapes (Bewley and Rączkowski 2002).

Why Can We See Variety Types of Sites?

Since people first learnt to fly, it has been appreciated that traces of early human activity can be observed from the air, recognized from their curved or linear shapes. Humans have always exploited and adapted the environment to their own needs. The surface of the ground has been disturbed and altered by generations of previous occupants, who have dug into it to create foundations, ditches and pits, and raised structures upon it, in the form of stone buildings or...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Archaeology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland

    Włodzimierz Rączkowski

Authors
  1. Włodzimierz Rączkowski
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Correspondence to Włodzimierz Rączkowski .

Section Editor information

  1. Departament d'Humanitats, ICREA/Universitat Pompeu Fabra., Passeig Lluis Companys 19/Ramon Trias Fargas 25-27/, 08005, Barcelona, Spain

    Sandra Monton Subias

  2. Department of Archaeology, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Bisserka Gaydarska

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Rączkowski, W. (2018). Aerial Archaeology. In: Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_1504-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_1504-2

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1

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