Sentinel-2 tools to improve field survey planning: Methods and first experiences

This paper presents an innovative use of Sentinel-2 datasets to manage and organize archaeological surveys. Knowledge of the territory is customary for the process of organizing and carrying out fieldwalking surveys with excellent results. Good datasets will help to answer archaeological and histori...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: García Sánchez, Jesús, Charro Lobato, Cristina
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2018
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/240663
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/240663
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Sentinel-2
Remote sensing
Archaeological survey
Landscape archaeology
Descripción
Sumario:This paper presents an innovative use of Sentinel-2 datasets to manage and organize archaeological surveys. Knowledge of the territory is customary for the process of organizing and carrying out fieldwalking surveys with excellent results. Good datasets will help to answer archaeological and historical questions present at the roots of any research project. This method was tested in different survey projects carried out in three different countries (Italy, Portugal and Spain)3during the late-winter and early spring of 2017 and 2018, a period in which cereal crops are in a crucial stage of its cycle and still differences in growth can be detected by means of examining the spectral footprint. This paper introduces some of the basic methodological questions while an in-depth study of results and its relationship with broader questions of visibility and survey is in preparation. The method proposed is based on locating, prior to the fieldwork, the field plots that show a lower presence of vegetation cover, or preferably bare soil areas, in a straightforward way. In order to do so, we used multispectral images of the Sentinel-2 mission, whose temporal and spatial resolution, together with its free distribution, make it a good tool not only for the identification of archaeological elements, but also for the organization of field surveys.