Integrating aerial and satellite imagery: Discovering Roman imperial landscapes in southern Dobrogea (Romania)

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates the value of analysing a range of remotely sensed imagery in order to study the development of the historic landscape in southern Dobrogea (Romania). The methodology involves integrating within a GIS environment low-altitude oblique aerial photographs, obtained through traditional observer-directed archaeological aerial reconnaissance; medium-altitude historical vertical photographs produced by German, British and American military reconnaissance during the Second World War; and high-altitude declassified US military satellite imagery (corona) from the 1960s. The value of this approach lies not just in that it enables extensive detailed mapping of large archaeological landscapes in Romania for the first time, but also that it allows the recording of previously unrecognised archaeological features now permanently destroyed by modern urban expansion or by industrial and infrastructural development. Various results are presented and illustrated, and some of the problems raised by each method of data acquisition are addressed.