Archaelogists using Google Earth to identify sites in Afghanistan - New Scientist

[Indenturedebtor]

http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg19926656.100-google-earth-reveals-afghanistans-hidden-treasures.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=tech3_head_Google%20Earth%20reveals%20Afghanistan's%20hidden%20treasures

These days even Indiana Jones might think twice about packing his trusty trowel and theodolite for some fieldwork in southern Afghanistan. But guerrillas and foreign armies are no obstacle for archaeologists who are using Google Earth to identify hundreds of new sites. They have also drawn up plans of more than 45 known but previously unmapped sites.
Until recently, satellite images have been too expensive and variable for widespread use by archaeologists. Now Google Earth's freely available high-resolution images are helping David Thomas and colleagues at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, to forge ahead with a project called Archaeological Sites of Afghanistan in Google Earth, which catalogues details of 463 potential sites in the Registan desert. These include mounds called tepes - the remains of ancient mud cities - hand-dug underground water channels and villages.

Thomas has also produced basic plans of sites such as the Qal'a-i Hauz fortress, believed to be a winter dwelling of the Ghaznavid elite of the 11th and 12th centuries. The images show evidence of structures which may have been hides used to hunt gazelle, and raised features probably used to manage water supplies.
The team also drew up detailed plans of the citadel of Bust, the Ghaznavids' winter capital, on the east bank of the Helmand river. It shows evidence of mausoleums, canals and walled gardens. The work was presented at the World Archaeological Congress in Dublin, Ireland, this month.


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Glad that at least some work is being done there to locate these sites... perhaps one day they can be studied and preserved.

[flvegan]

1. "Scientits"?

Whoa!

[Indenturedebtor]

2. LOL changed it thanks. n/t

[On the Road]

3. Wow --

I guess Afghanistan would work well because it's dry and relatively unpopulated. Now, if that can be combined with a ground-penetrating frequency, it can be taken to the next step.

[Xithras]

4. Link

I heard something about this a few months ago. Here's a link to an example of what they're finding. They show up readily enough by satellite, but I guess they're hard to spot out in the open desert. You can see several in the map location at the link, but if you scroll around you can easily find a dozen in this area. Each of the small roundish "bumps" is an ancient structure.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=31.014194,64.412627&spn=0.014032,0.027294&t=h&z=16

It's unfortunate, but the big question now is whether these sites will last. The previous article I read was full of warnings about treasure hunters now that the locations of these can be found so easily. In that country, in that great big desert, a shovel, a satphone, and a laptop are now the only things required to loot these otherwise pristine ancient sites.

Looking at those deserts today, it's almost hard to believe that they were lush, life filled savannah less than a thousand years ago. When William the Conqueror was landing in England, the Afghani's were hunting these lands in waist high grass. Nowadays it's just rock and sand.