Documenting Bronze Age Akrotiri on Thera using laser scanning, image-based modelling and geophysical prospection

The excavated architecture of the exceptional prehistoric site of Akrotiri on the Greek island of Thera/Santorini is endangered by gradual decay, damage due to accidents, and seismic shocks, being located on an active volcano in an earthquake-prone area. Therefore, in 2013 and 2014 a digital documentation project has been conducted with support of the National Geographic Society in order to generate a detailed digital model of Akrotiri’s architecture using terrestrial laser scanning and image-based modeling. Additionally, non-invasive geophysical prospection has been tested in order to investigate its potential to explore and map yet buried archaeological remains. This article describes the project and the generated results

Automatic detection, outlining and classification of magnetic anomalies in large-scale archaeological magnetic prospection data

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The discovery of the school of gladiators at Carnuntum, Austria

Sophisticated techniques of archaeological survey, including airborne imaging spectroscopy, electromagnetic induction and ground-penetrating radar, are opening up new horizons in the non-invasive exploration of archaeological sites. One location where they have yielded spectacular results is Carnuntum in Austria, on the south bank of the Danube, capital of the key Roman province of Pannonia. Excavations in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries revealed many of the major elements of this extensive complex, including the legionary fortress and the civilian town or municipium. Excavation, however, is no longer the onlyway of recovering and recording the details of these buried structures. In 2011, a combination of non-invasive survey methods in the area to the south of the civilian town, where little was visible on the surface, led to the dramatic discovery of remains interpreted as a gladiatorial school, complete with individual cells for the gladiators and a circular training arena. The combination of techniques has led to the recording and visualisation of the buried remains in astonishing detail, and the impact of the discovery is made all the greater by the stunning reconstruction images that the project has generated

ArchPro Carnuntum Project. Large-scale non-invasive archaeological prospection of the Roman town of Carnuntum

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ArchPro Carnuntum project large-scale non-invasive archaeological prospection of the Roman town of Carnuntum

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Interdiciplinary archaeological prospection at unprecented scale and resolution. The first five years of the LBI ArchPro Research Initiative 2010-2015

The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (LBI ArchPro) together with its partner the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) has developed motorized magnetic prospection systems to survey entire archaeological landscapes within reasonable time at high spatial sampling resolution. With these novel prospection systems the LBI ArchPro has successfully surveyed in total more than 32 km2 over the past five years, resulting in magnetic maps containing millions of anomalies. While data collection, data positioning and the processing of the data have been automated (with exception of the operation of the survey vehicles), the outlining (data segmentation and classification) and interpretation of the prospected magnetic anomalies has become in regard of large amount of generated data a tedious, very time consuming, so far manually conducted task. In order to speed up the interpretation process we have therefore developed a workflow and algorithms for the automatic detection, outlining and classification of magnetic anomalies. Relevant magnetic prospection anomalies are automatically classified into two classes, which are “iron litter” objects that are located closed to the surface, and deeper reaching individual “pit” objects. Based on this classification we calculate several physical and geometrical properties for each object and export this data to a Geographical Information System (GIS) for further interactive classification and subsequent data interpretatio

Interdisciplinary archaeological prospection at unprecented scale and resolution. The first five years of the LBI ArchPro Research Initiative 2010-2015

The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (LBI ArchPro) together with its partner the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) has developed motorized magnetic prospection systems to survey entire archaeological landscapes within reasonable time at high spatial sampling resolution. With these novel prospection system, the LBI ArchPro has successfully surveyed in total more than 32 square kilometres over the past five years resulting in magnetic maps containing millions of anomalies. While data collection data positioning and the processing of the data have been automated (with exception of the operation of the survey vehicles), the outlining (data segmentation and classification) and interpretation of the prospected magnetic anomalies has become in regard of large amount of generated data a tedious, very time consuming, so far manually conducted task. In order to speed up the interpretation process we have therefore developed a workflow and algorithms for the automatic detection, outlining and classification of magnetic anomalies. Relevant magnetic prospection anomalies are automatically classified into two classes, which are "iron litter'' objects that are located dosed co the surface, and deeper reaching individual "pit" objects. Based on this classification we calculate several physical and geometrical properties for each object and export this data to a Geographical Information System (GIS) for further interactive classification and subsequent data interpretation