Lidar Investigation of Knockdhu Promontory and its Environs, County Antrim, Northern Ireland

Abstract

ABSTRACTA high‐resolution aerial lidar survey (up to 40 points m‐2) has been carried out in the environs of Knockdhu Promontory in the Antrim Uplands, which is recognized as one of Northern Ireland's most important relict multiperiod archaeological landscapes. This lidar survey was amongst the first such surveys commissioned specifically for archaeological purposes in Northern Ireland and has helped to re‐evaluate the archaeological landscape character of a 9 km2 study area and inform future conservation studies. Sampled ground observation was undertaken in an attempt to provide a higher degree of interpretive integrity. These field observation exercises also highlighted the importance of the high vertical resolution of the data (0.05 m at 2σ (95% confidence level)) in delineating extremely subtle upstanding earthwork features that had hitherto gone unnoticed. Much of the archaeological evidence identified can be broadly ascribed to the early post‐medieval period (ad 1599–1750); this includes field boundaries, cultivation furrows, enclosures, transhumance huts, abandoned settlements and associated pathways, but the higher ground of the Antrim Plateau in this locality is also characterized by evidence of prehistoric activities and substantial earthworks survive such as the ‘Linford Barrows’ and ‘Knockdhu Promontory Fort’. The lidar study has identified as many as 285 previously unrecorded potential archaeological sites and amended existing records within the Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record (NISMR) and has proved transformational as a technique to ‘open up’ the Ulster uplands for archaeological study. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.