This paper presents satellite remote sensing-based evidence for a newly discovered, Indusera (260... more This paper presents satellite remote sensing-based evidence for a newly discovered, Indusera (2600-1900 BC) irrigation canal system in Punjab, Pakistan. Although scholars have long speculated about the role that irrigation may have played in sustaining agricultural systems in the Indus region during the third and early second millennium BC, direct evidence for irrigation works is largely absent owing to intensive reworking of the floodplain due to both anthropogenic and geomorphic processes. Analysis of historical CORONA, Landsat, and other satellite imagery, enabled us to identify a relict irrigation canal in a small area of the floodplain, while results from regional archaeological survey by the Beas River Survey project provide dating evidence for the canal from several Indus-era sites situated along its course. Results provide direct evidence for the construction and management of large-scale irrigation works during the Indus period, and thereby contribute to ongoing debates regarding ancient agricultural sustainability in during periods of climate change, potential human and land use impacts on Holocene floodplain development, and the role of irrigation and agricultural intensification on emerging social complexity.
Geologists have long valued satellite imagery in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) part of the electr... more Geologists have long valued satellite imagery in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) part of the electromagnetic spectrum (1100-2500 nm) because it can reveal subtle differences in minerology and soil moisture that are otherwise invisible, but the low spatial resolution (20-30 m) of publicly available SWIR imagery has limited its utility for archaeological investigations. As part of a NASA-funded research project, this paper
Although aerial lidar has proven to be a powerful tool for mapping archaeological landscapes, par... more Although aerial lidar has proven to be a powerful tool for mapping archaeological landscapes, particularly in forested regions of the world, the high costs of conventional lidar acquisition from aircraft or professional-grade drones remains a hurdle to many researchers. The recent development of ultra-compact, relatively lowcost lidar mapping systems that can be deployed on consumer-grade drones now make it feasible for archaeologists to collect their own high-resolution aerial lidar of sites and landscapes, but the efficacy of these systems remains largely untested. This paper presents results of surveys undertaken using a ultra-compact, dronedeployed lidar at archaeological sites located in three different environments: 1) tropical forests at Kealakekua Bay State Historic Park, Hawai'i, 2) piñon-juniper forest on Mesa Verde's North Escarpment, Colorado, and 3) mixed deciduous-evergreen forest at Enfield Shaker Village, New Hampshire. Results reveal a wealth of archaeological features at the three study sites and demonstrate the potential of drone-based lidar as a tool in archaeological prospection, but also illustrate some of the significant technical and practical challenges involved in making use of this exciting emerging technology.
An emerging arena of archaeological research is beginning to deploy remote sensing technologies-i... more An emerging arena of archaeological research is beginning to deploy remote sensing technologies-including aerial and satellite imagery, digital topographic data, and drone-acquired and terrestrial geophysical data-not only in support of conventional fieldwork but also as an independent means of exploring the archaeological landscape. This article provides a critical review of recent research that relies on an ever-growing arsenal of imagery and instruments to undertake innovative investigations: mapping regionalscale settlement histories, documenting ancient land use practices, revealing the complexity of settled spaces, building nuanced pictures of environmental contexts, and monitoring at-risk cultural heritage. At the same time, the disruptive nature of these technologies is generating complex new challenges and controversies surrounding data access and preservation, approaches to a deluge of information, and issues of ethical remote sensing. As we navigate these challenges, remote sensing technologies nonetheless offer revolutionary ways of interrogating the archaeological record and transformative insights into the human past.
Abstract Previous archaeoparasitology research in the eastern United States suggests that parasit... more Abstract Previous archaeoparasitology research in the eastern United States suggests that parasitic infection was most widespread in urban areas and among communities of lower socioeconomic status, a pattern attributed to poor sanitation, dense populations of humans and animals, and limited medical care access. The present study documents parasitic disease in a rural, wealthy, and highly educated community of northern New England through the analysis of fecal samples collected from a privy once attached to a 1786 house located on the campus of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Three solidly formed organic samples dating to the 1830 s–1840 s were recovered from secure contexts during excavations in 2019. The samples were rehydrated in 0.5% trisodium phosphate solution for 72-hours, and were washed through 230 µm, 120 µm, and 25 µm mesh sieves to remove large particulates and trap parasite eggs on the smallest sieve. The trapped material was collected, centrifuged, and examined using light microscopy for signs of parasite eggs. All three samples were positive for both tapeworm (Taenia spp.) and whipworm (Trichuris trichiura) eggs, suggesting that parasitic infection affected the Dartmouth community during the early nineteenth century. These results indicate that despite cold winters inhospitable to most parasite species, relatively good sanitation, accessible medical care, and the low population densities of rural New England, parasite infection was likely a concern even within affluent households. It therefore appears that nineteenth century parasite infection was not limited to low-income households in urban settings, but may also have been an important health concern for Dartmouth community members.
Satellite remote sensing is well demonstrated to be a powerful tool for investigating ancient lan... more Satellite remote sensing is well demonstrated to be a powerful tool for investigating ancient land use in Southwest Asia. However, few regional studies have systematically integrated satellite-based observations with more intensive remote sensing technologies, such as drone-deployed multispectral sensors and ground-based geophysics, to explore off-site areas. Here, we integrate remote sensing data from a variety of sources and scales including historic aerial photographs, modern satellite imagery, drone-deployed sensors, and ground-based geophysics to explore pre-modern land use along the Upper Diyala/Sirwan River in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Our analysis reveals an incredible diversity of land use features, including canals, qanats, trackways, and field systems, most of which likely date to the first millennium CE, and demonstrate the potential of more intensive remote sensing methods to resolve land use features. Our results align with broader trends across ancient Southwest A...
Understanding everyday agro-pastoral practice is critical for reconstructing the formation and maintenance of ancient societies. The ancient Near East (Southwest Asia) has one of the longest histories of agro-pastoral practice and one of the richest textual datasets anywhere on the globe. Yet, our knowledge of local, day-to-day agro-pastoral management strategies remains conjectural in many regions of Southwest Asia during the Bronze Age (late 4th–2nd millennium BCE). In this study we used phytoliths, dung spherulites, and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to identify and examine dung-rich sediments from Khani Masi, a mid-second millennium BCE Kassite site located in the Kurdish Region of Iraq. While micro-remain and geochemical approaches have not yet been widely applied in Mesopotamia (Ancient Iraq), they have the potential to shed light on the production systems supporting its Bronze Age cities, states, and empires. Our aim was to investigate (1) the range of local pastoral management strategies, (2) the degree of integration between agricultural and pastoral practice, and (3) the presence of signals related to the local ecology, seasonality, and environmental change and continuity.
Phytolith results indicate that sheep-goat herds were primarily free grazed on wild grasses. The dominance of wild grass inflorescences, a potentially strong seasonality indicator, may suggest transhumant pastoralism. However, further evidence, including occasional foddering with cereal chaff, a diverse range of crop types, and significant accumulation of burnt dung within the site, collectively suggests a closely linked local agro-pastoral subsistence economy. This study provides much-needed empirical botanical data as well as productive insights for future application of phytolith studies in the Mesopotamian region, and sheds new light on agro-pastoral practice in the Zagros foothills during the second millennium BCE Kassite period.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, over 450 precolumbian and historic Indi... more During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, over 450 precolumbian and historic Indigenous agricultural fields were documented across the state of Wisconsin. Today, the vast majority of these features are generally assumed to have been destroyed. Focusing on the Wisconsin River basin, which has the highest concentration of known archaeological field systems in the Midwest, this study explores the potential of using historical aerial photographs to identify and interpret archaeological agricultural features. Relying on state site records, an archive of high-resolution 1930s aerial images, and modern lidar data, we carefully examine the region surrounding 59 sites where fields had previously been documented. At a quarter of the sites we investigated, we successfully identified both known and unrecorded archaeological features—including agricultural fields, effigy mounds, earthworks, and house basins—most of which have been destroyed by recent land use practices. Our analysis sheds light on the complexity and richness of the archaeological landscape, with vast agricultural spaces situated beyond traditional site boundaries, and suggests that precolumbian and historic Indigenous agricultural fields may have been much larger and more widespread than conventionally understood.
New Agendas in Remote Sensing and Landscape Archaeology in the Near East: Studies in Honour of Tony J. Wilkinson. Edited by Dan Lawrence, Mark Altaweel and Graham Philip. Archaeopress, 2020
While archaeologists have long understood that thermal and multi-spectral imagery can potentially... more While archaeologists have long understood that thermal and multi-spectral imagery can potentially reveal a wide range of ancient cultural landscape features, only recently have advances in drone and sensor technology enabled us to collect these data at sufficiently high spatial and temporal resolution for archaeological field settings. This paper presents results of a study at the Enfield Shaker Village, New Hampshire (USA), in which we collect a time-series of multi-spectral visible light, near-infrared (NIR), and thermal imagery in order to better understand the optimal contexts and environmental conditions for various sensors. We present new methods to remove noise from imagery and to combine multiple raster datasets in order to improve archaeological feature visibility. Analysis compares results of aerial imaging with ground-penetrating radar and magnetic gradiometry surveys, illustrating the complementary nature of these distinct remote sensing methods. Results demonstrate the value of high-resolution thermal and NIR imagery, as well as of multi-temporal image analysis, for the detection of archaeological features on and below the ground surface, offering an improved set of methods for the integration of these emerging technologies into archaeological field investigations.
While the Diyala (Kurdish Sirwan) River Valley is storied in Near Eastern archaeology as home to ... more While the Diyala (Kurdish Sirwan) River Valley is storied in Near Eastern archaeology as home to the Oriental Institute's excavations in the 1930s as well as to Robert McC. Adams' pioneering archaeological survey, The Land Behind Baghdad, the upper reaches of the river valley remain almost unknown to modern scholarship. Yet this region, at the interface between irrigated lowland Mesopotamia and the Zagros highlands to the north and east, has long been hypothesized as central to the origins and development of complex societies. It was hotly contested by Bronze Age imperial powers, and offered one of the principle access routes connecting Mespotamia to the Iranian Plateau and beyond. This paper presents an interim report of the Sirwan Regional Project, a regional archaeological survey undertaken from 2013–2015 in a 4000 square kilometre area between the modern city of Darbandikhan and the plains south of Kalar. Encompassing a wide range of environments, from the rugged uplands of the Zagros front ranges to the rich irrigated basins of the Middle Diyala, the project has already discovered a wealth of previously unknown archaeological sites ranging in date from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic through the modern period. Following an overview of the physical geography of the Upper Diyala/Sirwan, this paper highlights key findings that are beginning to transform our understanding of this historically important but poorly known region.
Highland-lowland interaction Kassite Late Bronze Age Sirwan Regional Project Khani Masi a b s t r... more Highland-lowland interaction Kassite Late Bronze Age Sirwan Regional Project Khani Masi a b s t r a c t Narratives of civilization are spun from the juxtaposition of a civilized self with that of a barbarous other. Such an opposition is never more easily constructed than from the distinctiveness of lowland and mountain topographies, environments, and life-ways. Studies of highland-lowland relationships across different periods, places and disciplines also place the two realms in conceptual opposition and only rarely engage in depth with the interaction that must underwrite all negotiations of identity. We can trace the first attested construction of such a dichotomy in the texts and iconography that detail Mesopotamia's interaction with the Zagros highlands in the later third and second millennia BCE. The recent opening of the Kurdish Region of northeast Iraq to international archaeological research now provides us with the opportunity to investigate Bronze Age communities located in transitional and highland landscapes and their relationships with the lowlands. In this paper we take a critical approach to the conceptualization of highland-lowland interaction in the past and in modern scholarship and formulate a bottom-up, archaeological approach for the investigation of highland-lowland encounters. Drawing on our recent work in the Upper Diyala/Sirwan river valley, we present crucial new settlement and material evidence, which challenges traditional interpretations of the region as a homeland of mountain tribes and begin to write a more balanced, local account of socio-cultural development and external interaction between this borderland region and a series of Bronze Age imperial powers.
This paper presents satellite remote sensing-based evidence for a newly discovered, Indusera (260... more This paper presents satellite remote sensing-based evidence for a newly discovered, Indusera (2600-1900 BC) irrigation canal system in Punjab, Pakistan. Although scholars have long speculated about the role that irrigation may have played in sustaining agricultural systems in the Indus region during the third and early second millennium BC, direct evidence for irrigation works is largely absent owing to intensive reworking of the floodplain due to both anthropogenic and geomorphic processes. Analysis of historical CORONA, Landsat, and other satellite imagery, enabled us to identify a relict irrigation canal in a small area of the floodplain, while results from regional archaeological survey by the Beas River Survey project provide dating evidence for the canal from several Indus-era sites situated along its course. Results provide direct evidence for the construction and management of large-scale irrigation works during the Indus period, and thereby contribute to ongoing debates regarding ancient agricultural sustainability in during periods of climate change, potential human and land use impacts on Holocene floodplain development, and the role of irrigation and agricultural intensification on emerging social complexity.
Geologists have long valued satellite imagery in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) part of the electr... more Geologists have long valued satellite imagery in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) part of the electromagnetic spectrum (1100-2500 nm) because it can reveal subtle differences in minerology and soil moisture that are otherwise invisible, but the low spatial resolution (20-30 m) of publicly available SWIR imagery has limited its utility for archaeological investigations. As part of a NASA-funded research project, this paper
Although aerial lidar has proven to be a powerful tool for mapping archaeological landscapes, par... more Although aerial lidar has proven to be a powerful tool for mapping archaeological landscapes, particularly in forested regions of the world, the high costs of conventional lidar acquisition from aircraft or professional-grade drones remains a hurdle to many researchers. The recent development of ultra-compact, relatively lowcost lidar mapping systems that can be deployed on consumer-grade drones now make it feasible for archaeologists to collect their own high-resolution aerial lidar of sites and landscapes, but the efficacy of these systems remains largely untested. This paper presents results of surveys undertaken using a ultra-compact, dronedeployed lidar at archaeological sites located in three different environments: 1) tropical forests at Kealakekua Bay State Historic Park, Hawai'i, 2) piñon-juniper forest on Mesa Verde's North Escarpment, Colorado, and 3) mixed deciduous-evergreen forest at Enfield Shaker Village, New Hampshire. Results reveal a wealth of archaeological features at the three study sites and demonstrate the potential of drone-based lidar as a tool in archaeological prospection, but also illustrate some of the significant technical and practical challenges involved in making use of this exciting emerging technology.
An emerging arena of archaeological research is beginning to deploy remote sensing technologies-i... more An emerging arena of archaeological research is beginning to deploy remote sensing technologies-including aerial and satellite imagery, digital topographic data, and drone-acquired and terrestrial geophysical data-not only in support of conventional fieldwork but also as an independent means of exploring the archaeological landscape. This article provides a critical review of recent research that relies on an ever-growing arsenal of imagery and instruments to undertake innovative investigations: mapping regionalscale settlement histories, documenting ancient land use practices, revealing the complexity of settled spaces, building nuanced pictures of environmental contexts, and monitoring at-risk cultural heritage. At the same time, the disruptive nature of these technologies is generating complex new challenges and controversies surrounding data access and preservation, approaches to a deluge of information, and issues of ethical remote sensing. As we navigate these challenges, remote sensing technologies nonetheless offer revolutionary ways of interrogating the archaeological record and transformative insights into the human past.
Abstract Previous archaeoparasitology research in the eastern United States suggests that parasit... more Abstract Previous archaeoparasitology research in the eastern United States suggests that parasitic infection was most widespread in urban areas and among communities of lower socioeconomic status, a pattern attributed to poor sanitation, dense populations of humans and animals, and limited medical care access. The present study documents parasitic disease in a rural, wealthy, and highly educated community of northern New England through the analysis of fecal samples collected from a privy once attached to a 1786 house located on the campus of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Three solidly formed organic samples dating to the 1830 s–1840 s were recovered from secure contexts during excavations in 2019. The samples were rehydrated in 0.5% trisodium phosphate solution for 72-hours, and were washed through 230 µm, 120 µm, and 25 µm mesh sieves to remove large particulates and trap parasite eggs on the smallest sieve. The trapped material was collected, centrifuged, and examined using light microscopy for signs of parasite eggs. All three samples were positive for both tapeworm (Taenia spp.) and whipworm (Trichuris trichiura) eggs, suggesting that parasitic infection affected the Dartmouth community during the early nineteenth century. These results indicate that despite cold winters inhospitable to most parasite species, relatively good sanitation, accessible medical care, and the low population densities of rural New England, parasite infection was likely a concern even within affluent households. It therefore appears that nineteenth century parasite infection was not limited to low-income households in urban settings, but may also have been an important health concern for Dartmouth community members.
Satellite remote sensing is well demonstrated to be a powerful tool for investigating ancient lan... more Satellite remote sensing is well demonstrated to be a powerful tool for investigating ancient land use in Southwest Asia. However, few regional studies have systematically integrated satellite-based observations with more intensive remote sensing technologies, such as drone-deployed multispectral sensors and ground-based geophysics, to explore off-site areas. Here, we integrate remote sensing data from a variety of sources and scales including historic aerial photographs, modern satellite imagery, drone-deployed sensors, and ground-based geophysics to explore pre-modern land use along the Upper Diyala/Sirwan River in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Our analysis reveals an incredible diversity of land use features, including canals, qanats, trackways, and field systems, most of which likely date to the first millennium CE, and demonstrate the potential of more intensive remote sensing methods to resolve land use features. Our results align with broader trends across ancient Southwest A...
Understanding everyday agro-pastoral practice is critical for reconstructing the formation and maintenance of ancient societies. The ancient Near East (Southwest Asia) has one of the longest histories of agro-pastoral practice and one of the richest textual datasets anywhere on the globe. Yet, our knowledge of local, day-to-day agro-pastoral management strategies remains conjectural in many regions of Southwest Asia during the Bronze Age (late 4th–2nd millennium BCE). In this study we used phytoliths, dung spherulites, and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to identify and examine dung-rich sediments from Khani Masi, a mid-second millennium BCE Kassite site located in the Kurdish Region of Iraq. While micro-remain and geochemical approaches have not yet been widely applied in Mesopotamia (Ancient Iraq), they have the potential to shed light on the production systems supporting its Bronze Age cities, states, and empires. Our aim was to investigate (1) the range of local pastoral management strategies, (2) the degree of integration between agricultural and pastoral practice, and (3) the presence of signals related to the local ecology, seasonality, and environmental change and continuity.
Phytolith results indicate that sheep-goat herds were primarily free grazed on wild grasses. The dominance of wild grass inflorescences, a potentially strong seasonality indicator, may suggest transhumant pastoralism. However, further evidence, including occasional foddering with cereal chaff, a diverse range of crop types, and significant accumulation of burnt dung within the site, collectively suggests a closely linked local agro-pastoral subsistence economy. This study provides much-needed empirical botanical data as well as productive insights for future application of phytolith studies in the Mesopotamian region, and sheds new light on agro-pastoral practice in the Zagros foothills during the second millennium BCE Kassite period.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, over 450 precolumbian and historic Indi... more During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, over 450 precolumbian and historic Indigenous agricultural fields were documented across the state of Wisconsin. Today, the vast majority of these features are generally assumed to have been destroyed. Focusing on the Wisconsin River basin, which has the highest concentration of known archaeological field systems in the Midwest, this study explores the potential of using historical aerial photographs to identify and interpret archaeological agricultural features. Relying on state site records, an archive of high-resolution 1930s aerial images, and modern lidar data, we carefully examine the region surrounding 59 sites where fields had previously been documented. At a quarter of the sites we investigated, we successfully identified both known and unrecorded archaeological features—including agricultural fields, effigy mounds, earthworks, and house basins—most of which have been destroyed by recent land use practices. Our analysis sheds light on the complexity and richness of the archaeological landscape, with vast agricultural spaces situated beyond traditional site boundaries, and suggests that precolumbian and historic Indigenous agricultural fields may have been much larger and more widespread than conventionally understood.
New Agendas in Remote Sensing and Landscape Archaeology in the Near East: Studies in Honour of Tony J. Wilkinson. Edited by Dan Lawrence, Mark Altaweel and Graham Philip. Archaeopress, 2020
While archaeologists have long understood that thermal and multi-spectral imagery can potentially... more While archaeologists have long understood that thermal and multi-spectral imagery can potentially reveal a wide range of ancient cultural landscape features, only recently have advances in drone and sensor technology enabled us to collect these data at sufficiently high spatial and temporal resolution for archaeological field settings. This paper presents results of a study at the Enfield Shaker Village, New Hampshire (USA), in which we collect a time-series of multi-spectral visible light, near-infrared (NIR), and thermal imagery in order to better understand the optimal contexts and environmental conditions for various sensors. We present new methods to remove noise from imagery and to combine multiple raster datasets in order to improve archaeological feature visibility. Analysis compares results of aerial imaging with ground-penetrating radar and magnetic gradiometry surveys, illustrating the complementary nature of these distinct remote sensing methods. Results demonstrate the value of high-resolution thermal and NIR imagery, as well as of multi-temporal image analysis, for the detection of archaeological features on and below the ground surface, offering an improved set of methods for the integration of these emerging technologies into archaeological field investigations.
While the Diyala (Kurdish Sirwan) River Valley is storied in Near Eastern archaeology as home to ... more While the Diyala (Kurdish Sirwan) River Valley is storied in Near Eastern archaeology as home to the Oriental Institute's excavations in the 1930s as well as to Robert McC. Adams' pioneering archaeological survey, The Land Behind Baghdad, the upper reaches of the river valley remain almost unknown to modern scholarship. Yet this region, at the interface between irrigated lowland Mesopotamia and the Zagros highlands to the north and east, has long been hypothesized as central to the origins and development of complex societies. It was hotly contested by Bronze Age imperial powers, and offered one of the principle access routes connecting Mespotamia to the Iranian Plateau and beyond. This paper presents an interim report of the Sirwan Regional Project, a regional archaeological survey undertaken from 2013–2015 in a 4000 square kilometre area between the modern city of Darbandikhan and the plains south of Kalar. Encompassing a wide range of environments, from the rugged uplands of the Zagros front ranges to the rich irrigated basins of the Middle Diyala, the project has already discovered a wealth of previously unknown archaeological sites ranging in date from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic through the modern period. Following an overview of the physical geography of the Upper Diyala/Sirwan, this paper highlights key findings that are beginning to transform our understanding of this historically important but poorly known region.
Highland-lowland interaction Kassite Late Bronze Age Sirwan Regional Project Khani Masi a b s t r... more Highland-lowland interaction Kassite Late Bronze Age Sirwan Regional Project Khani Masi a b s t r a c t Narratives of civilization are spun from the juxtaposition of a civilized self with that of a barbarous other. Such an opposition is never more easily constructed than from the distinctiveness of lowland and mountain topographies, environments, and life-ways. Studies of highland-lowland relationships across different periods, places and disciplines also place the two realms in conceptual opposition and only rarely engage in depth with the interaction that must underwrite all negotiations of identity. We can trace the first attested construction of such a dichotomy in the texts and iconography that detail Mesopotamia's interaction with the Zagros highlands in the later third and second millennia BCE. The recent opening of the Kurdish Region of northeast Iraq to international archaeological research now provides us with the opportunity to investigate Bronze Age communities located in transitional and highland landscapes and their relationships with the lowlands. In this paper we take a critical approach to the conceptualization of highland-lowland interaction in the past and in modern scholarship and formulate a bottom-up, archaeological approach for the investigation of highland-lowland encounters. Drawing on our recent work in the Upper Diyala/Sirwan river valley, we present crucial new settlement and material evidence, which challenges traditional interpretations of the region as a homeland of mountain tribes and begin to write a more balanced, local account of socio-cultural development and external interaction between this borderland region and a series of Bronze Age imperial powers.
Archaeologists have recognized since the 1970s that thermal images captured at an optimal time in... more Archaeologists have recognized since the 1970s that thermal images captured at an optimal time in the diurnal cycle have the potential to reveal surface artifacts, subtle topography, and even subsurface architectural remains. However, it is only with the recent development of reliable and stable unmanned aerial vehicles, small, uncooled, high-resolution thermal cameras, and powerful photogrammetric image processing software that archaeological aerial thermography has become practical. This paper discusses our recent efforts to deploy this emerging technology on a range of archaeological sites, with examples including an ancestral Puebloan community in New Mexico, a Mississippian mound center in Arkansas, and Late Bronze Age city in Cyprus. Results provide a methodological blueprint for drone-based collection and processing of thermal imagery, and illustrate some of the factors that affect the visibility of archaeological features under different environmental conditions. We also discuss a number of experimental approaches to processing thermal data that help highlight archaeological features even further, pointing to some of the many still unexplored possibilities for drone-based aerial thermography to aid in archaeological research.
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Papers by Jesse Casana
Understanding everyday agro-pastoral practice is critical for reconstructing the formation and maintenance of ancient societies. The ancient Near East (Southwest Asia) has one of the longest histories of agro-pastoral practice and one of the richest textual datasets anywhere on the globe. Yet, our knowledge of local, day-to-day agro-pastoral management strategies remains conjectural in many regions of Southwest Asia during the Bronze Age (late 4th–2nd millennium BCE). In this study we used phytoliths, dung spherulites, and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to identify and examine dung-rich sediments from Khani Masi, a mid-second millennium BCE Kassite site located in the Kurdish Region of Iraq. While micro-remain and geochemical approaches have not yet been widely applied in Mesopotamia (Ancient Iraq), they have the potential to shed light on the production systems supporting its Bronze Age cities, states, and empires. Our aim was to investigate (1) the range of local pastoral management strategies, (2) the degree of integration between agricultural and pastoral practice, and (3) the presence of signals related to the local ecology, seasonality, and environmental change and continuity.
Phytolith results indicate that sheep-goat herds were primarily free grazed on wild grasses. The dominance of wild grass inflorescences, a potentially strong seasonality indicator, may suggest transhumant pastoralism. However, further evidence, including occasional foddering with cereal chaff, a diverse range of crop types, and significant accumulation of burnt dung within the site, collectively suggests a closely linked local agro-pastoral subsistence economy. This study provides much-needed empirical botanical data as well as productive insights for future application of phytolith studies in the Mesopotamian region, and sheds new light on agro-pastoral practice in the Zagros foothills during the second millennium BCE Kassite period.
agricultural features. Relying on state site records, an archive of high-resolution 1930s aerial images, and modern lidar data, we carefully examine the region surrounding 59 sites where fields had previously been documented. At a quarter of the sites we investigated, we successfully identified both known and unrecorded archaeological features—including agricultural fields, effigy mounds, earthworks, and house basins—most of which have been destroyed by recent land use practices. Our
analysis sheds light on the complexity and richness of the archaeological landscape, with vast agricultural spaces situated beyond traditional site boundaries, and suggests that precolumbian and historic Indigenous agricultural fields may have been much larger and more widespread than conventionally understood.
Understanding everyday agro-pastoral practice is critical for reconstructing the formation and maintenance of ancient societies. The ancient Near East (Southwest Asia) has one of the longest histories of agro-pastoral practice and one of the richest textual datasets anywhere on the globe. Yet, our knowledge of local, day-to-day agro-pastoral management strategies remains conjectural in many regions of Southwest Asia during the Bronze Age (late 4th–2nd millennium BCE). In this study we used phytoliths, dung spherulites, and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to identify and examine dung-rich sediments from Khani Masi, a mid-second millennium BCE Kassite site located in the Kurdish Region of Iraq. While micro-remain and geochemical approaches have not yet been widely applied in Mesopotamia (Ancient Iraq), they have the potential to shed light on the production systems supporting its Bronze Age cities, states, and empires. Our aim was to investigate (1) the range of local pastoral management strategies, (2) the degree of integration between agricultural and pastoral practice, and (3) the presence of signals related to the local ecology, seasonality, and environmental change and continuity.
Phytolith results indicate that sheep-goat herds were primarily free grazed on wild grasses. The dominance of wild grass inflorescences, a potentially strong seasonality indicator, may suggest transhumant pastoralism. However, further evidence, including occasional foddering with cereal chaff, a diverse range of crop types, and significant accumulation of burnt dung within the site, collectively suggests a closely linked local agro-pastoral subsistence economy. This study provides much-needed empirical botanical data as well as productive insights for future application of phytolith studies in the Mesopotamian region, and sheds new light on agro-pastoral practice in the Zagros foothills during the second millennium BCE Kassite period.
agricultural features. Relying on state site records, an archive of high-resolution 1930s aerial images, and modern lidar data, we carefully examine the region surrounding 59 sites where fields had previously been documented. At a quarter of the sites we investigated, we successfully identified both known and unrecorded archaeological features—including agricultural fields, effigy mounds, earthworks, and house basins—most of which have been destroyed by recent land use practices. Our
analysis sheds light on the complexity and richness of the archaeological landscape, with vast agricultural spaces situated beyond traditional site boundaries, and suggests that precolumbian and historic Indigenous agricultural fields may have been much larger and more widespread than conventionally understood.