Wide-Area, Planning Level Archaeological Surveys Using SAR and Multispectral Images

Abstract

Archaeological sites vary greatly in terms of type, size, and material composition. They have in common only that they humanly caused perturbations of what would otherwise be a landscape ordered by natural causes. Protocols are presented in this paper for detecting archaeological sites that can be characterized generally as <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">positive</i> as opposed to <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">normative</i> , in the way that these two terms are used in the philosophy of science. Positive statements are defined in the philosophy of science as those that are (a) falsifiable and (b) made in the attempt to describe reality. Normative statements, in contrast, describe how things ought to be or are assumed to be. The multi-parameter statistical difference signature development presented in this paper rests upon protocols that test the statement that sensed data recorded at archaeological sites are significantly different from sensed data taken from surrounding landscapes, which is both falsifiable and verifiable. The object of this testing is to find which types of data sensed at archaeological sites are most different from data sensed at surrounding areas. It would seem that previous automated signature development protocols are essentially normative, in that they have the object of finding areas that are similar to idealized models of archaeological sites. The application of this approach to the seven steps of the multi-parameter statistical difference signature development protocols is presented.