Abstract
This paper aims to introduce new linear orthogonal equations for different satellite data derived from QuickBird; IKONOS; WorldView-2; GeoEye-1, ASTER; Landsat 4 TM and Landsat 7 ETM+ sensors, in order to enhance the exposure of crop marks. The latest are of significant value for the detection of buried archaeological features using remote sensing techniques. The proposed transformations, re-projects the initial VNIR bands of the satellite image, into a new 3D coordinate system where the first component is the so called “crop mark”, the second component “vegetation” and the third component “soil”. For the purpose of this study, a large ground spectral signature database has been explored and analyzed separately for each different satellite image. The narrow band reflectance has been re-calculated using the Relative Spectral Response filters of each sensor, and then a PCA analysis was carried out. Subsequently, the first three PCA components were rotated in order to enhance the detection of crop marks. Finally, all proposed transformations have been successfully evaluated in different existing archaeological sites and some interesting crop marks have been exposed.
Highlights
Detection of buried archaeological features using medium or high resolution satellite imagery is a well-established procedure in archeological research [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
Remote sensing has been widely explored during the last decade for supporting archaeological research
The detection of un-excavated archaeological sites has been long attracted the interest of scientists, while the new capabilities of satellite remote sensing sensors provide further possibilities
Summary
Detection of buried archaeological features using medium or high resolution satellite imagery is a well-established procedure in archeological research [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Buried structures may be identified mainly by image interpretation of crop marks [9,10,11] or using semi-automatic techniques [12,13]. These marks are formed in areas where vegetation overlays near-surface archaeological remains. This is due to the fact that archaeological features tend to retain different percentages of soil moisture compared to the rest of the crops of an area. Depending on the type of the buried archaeological features, crop vigour may be enhanced or reduced [14]
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