Three Years of Google Earth Engine-Based Archaeological Surveys in Iraqi Kurdistan: Results from the Ground

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a three-year survey (2021–2023), conducted in an area of approximately 356 km2 in Iraqi Kurdistan with the aim of identifying previously undetected archaeological sites. Thanks to the development of a multi-temporal approach based on open multispectral satellite data, greater effectiveness was achieved for the recognition of archaeological sites when compared to the use of single archival or freely accessible satellite images, which are typically employed in archaeological research. In particular, the Google Earth Engine services allowed for the efficient utilization of cloud computing resources to handle hundreds of remote sensing images. Using different datasets, namely Landsat 5, Landsat 7 and Sentinel-2, several products were obtained by processing entire stacks of images acquired at different epochs, thus minimizing the adverse effects on site visibility caused by vegetation, crops and cloud coverage and permitting an effective visual inspection and site recognition. Furthermore, spectral signature analysis of every potential site complemented the method. The developed approach was tested on areas that belong to the Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project (LoNAP) and the Upper Greater Zab Archaeological Reconnaissance (UGZAR) project, which had been intensively surveyed in the recent past. This represented an additional challenge to the method, as the most visible and extensive sites (tells) had already been detected. Three years of direct ground-truthing in the field enabled assessment of the outcomes of the remote sensing-based analysis, discovering more than 60 previously undetected sites and confirming the utility of the method for archaeological research in the area of Northern Mesopotamia.