Archaeological treasures a click away on Google Earth
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/15763952.htm
After 25 years of gritty field work, UNC Chapel Hill archaeologist
Scott Madry has dug up a new way to hunt for ancient ruins -- without
leaving home.
Last year, Madry read how an Italian man accidentally discovered the
outline of an ancient Roman villa while looking at his house on
Google Earth.
Madry explores how a Celtic people called the Aedui lived in France
for about three centuries starting about 300 B.C.
Madry got out his laptop, fired up Google Earth and looked over lands
in Burgundy, near his research area. Immediately, he spotted features
that, to his trained eye, resembled outlines of Iron Age, Bronze Age,
ancient Roman and medieval residences, forts, roads and monuments.
In 25 years on the ground, "I've found a handful of archaeological
sites. I found more in the first five, six, seven hours than I've
found in years of traditional field surveys and aerial archaeology,"
he said.
Google Earth, a sister product to the Internet's most popular search
engine, collects and displays satellite images taken around the
globe. Some have high enough resolution to let viewers see people
standing outside. Most viewers download pictures for play, enjoying
bird's-eye views of their home, the old neighborhood, exotic places
they would like to go.
As the news of Madry's work spreads, other scientists are taking notice.
"This is very fascinating for us. There is great potential," said
Axel Posluschny of the German Archaeological Institute in Frankfurt.
Sightings confirmed
Madry recorded 101 possible ancient sites, along with their
longitudes and latitudes. This spring, he visited the French Ministry
of Culture's archaeology office in Dijon to compare what he found on
the Internet with what the French have found on the ground. The
government files confirmed his hunch.
About 75 percent of his computer-screen finds were known
archaeological sites, proving that what looks like ancient remains on
the Internet can be bona fide finds. A share of the remaining 25
percent could be new sites that have escaped discovery until now.
Everything Madry downloaded was free. When he reported preliminary
findings at the international Computer Applications and Quantitative
Methods in Archaeology conference this spring, other researchers took
notice. Those who work in countries where aerial photographs are
forbidden or restricted for security reasons are particularly
curious. Madry was encouraged to teach the technique at next spring's
gathering.
Chikai Ohazama, a Google Earth product manager in Mountain View,
Calif., said his company posted the satellite images beginning in
2005 to widen access to technology that was once the domain of very few.
Since it reached the Web, people have had their fun with it --
finding and sharing images of airplanes that satellites captured
around the world or pinpointing every location ever mentioned in the
plays of William Shakespeare.
Serious missions employ it, as well, Ohazama said. After Hurricane
Katrina, Google took pains to quickly update images of the Gulf Coast
and New Orleans. Evacuees and others looked there regularly to
witness the damage.
Ohazama said he wasn't aware of Madry's work, though the
archaeologist has disclosed his project to the company. But Google
likes to be surprised by people's creativity, he said.
"It's a platform we don't want to control," Ohazama said.
