Abstract
The impact of a new technique upon a branch of science continues to be felt long after the first shock. Air-photography revolutionized the study of prehistoric fields and the excavation of individual sites, such as Caistor-by-Norwich, Woodhenge Arminghall, and the Ditchley Roman villa. It will, in the near future, revolutionize the study of distributions, itself quite a new subject. In my book Man and his Past (Oxford, 1921, pp. 128–153). I pointed out that the distribution-pattern of ‘loose finds,’ such as beakers and flat bronze axes, was free from the defect inherent in the distribution-pattern of objects fixed in the soil, such as megaliths, which may be removed by agricultural operations. ‘Camps’ and barrows are subject to the same limitations as indicators of population-areas; they may be destroyed by agriculture—prehistoric, mediaeval and modern; and there are many instances where such destruction is known to have occurred. They can both, however, be recovered by air-photography, which thereby rectifies the distortion of the distribution-map based solely on ground-work.
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