Integrating Satellite, UAV, and Ground-Based Remote Sensing in Archaeology: An Exploration of Pre-Modern Land Use in Northeastern Iraq

Elise Jakoby Laugier,Jesse Casana

doi:10.3390/rs13245119

Abstract

Satellite remote sensing is well demonstrated to be a powerful tool for investigating ancient land use in Southwest Asia. However, few regional studies have systematically integrated satellite-based observations with more intensive remote sensing technologies, such as drone-deployed multispectral sensors and ground-based geophysics, to explore off-site areas. Here, we integrate remote sensing data from a variety of sources and scales including historic aerial photographs, modern satellite imagery, drone-deployed sensors, and ground-based geophysics to explore pre-modern land use along the Upper Diyala/Sirwan River in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Our analysis reveals an incredible diversity of land use features, including canals, qanats, trackways, and field systems, most of which likely date to the first millennium CE, and demonstrate the potential of more intensive remote sensing methods to resolve land use features. Our results align with broader trends across ancient Southwest Asia that document the most intensive land use in the first millennium BCE through the first millennium CE. Land use features dating to the earlier Bronze Age (fourth through second millennium BCE) remain elusive and will likely require other investigative approaches.

Highlights

Ancient land-use features, such as field boundaries, trackways, and canals, constitute invaluable records of past land use practices [1–3], providing unique insights into ancient subsistence practices, agricultural economies, human–environment relationships, and movement across landscapes
1950s but were to historic imagery (Figure 16), we found that all the features predate the 1950s but were variously visible on the different types of remote sensing
This study integrated remotely sensed data from high-resolution historic and modern satellites, as well as data generated from ground-based geophysics and drone-mounted sensors

Summary

Introduction

Ancient land-use features, such as field boundaries, trackways, and canals, constitute invaluable records of past land use practices [1–3], providing unique insights into ancient subsistence practices, agricultural economies, human–environment relationships, and movement across landscapes. In Mesopotamia, which includes the Tigris–Euphrates river basin in modern Iraq and adjacent regions, our understanding of the land use history is strongly informed by two areas where land use features are exceptionally well-preserved and tend to be readily visible on satellite imagery: (1) the rainfed farming zones in the steppe regions of Northern Mesopotamia (i.e., the Jezirah) and (2) the irrigated zones in the arid alluvial plains of Southern Mesopotamia (Figure 1). In both areas, the preserved land use features and their association with settlement patterns reveal a great deal about ancient societies and the processes by which they modified landscapes [2,4].

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion