8th Annual US/ICOMOS International Symposium

HERITAGE INTERPRETATION

US/ICAHM Geophysical Technologies in
Cultural Resource Preservation

 

United States/International Committee
on Archaeological Heritage Management

 

Friday, May 6, 2005

Included in registration - select in lieu of a field tour.

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Geophysical sensing technologies (e.g., ground penetration radar, high resolution aerial radar, magnetometry, sonar technologies, satellite and aerial collection of multispectral and hyperspectral data) and the availability and sophistication of GIS technology have developed rapidly over the past decade. This symposium will present a brief history of these technologies, describe some of the most promising applications of them, and consider the ways in which they might be made more available to researchers and preservationists. A discussion will be held at the end of the session to solicit ideas for mainstreaming the use of these technologies in research, site management planning and monitoring the condition of cultural resources.  The discussion will also address the need to safeguard the locations of sites when they are discovered with the use of remote sensing technologies.

9:00 am

David Berwick

Cutting Edge to Standard Practice: How Do We Get There?

Discussion

Using GIS to Assess Preservation Legislation

History and Status of Aerial and Satellite Remote Sensing and GIS in the Inventory and Evaluation of Cultural Sites

Imaging Radar Data and Detection of Archaeological Sites

Application of Ground-Based LIDAR and Other Innovative Photogrammetric Methods to the Documentation and Interpretation of Historic Structures and Archeological Sites

Data Fusion of Archaeological Remote Sensing from  Ground-, Air-, and Space-Based Platforms

Case Studies for Use of Remote Sensing Technologies for the Accurate Recording of Complex Historic Buildings

US/ICAHM Geophysical Technologies in Cultural Resource Preservation

Berwick, David

Cutting Edge to Standard Practice: How Do We Get There? 

While the development of cutting edge technologies always promotes exciting possibilities, getting these adopted as standard practice may be more difficult than solving the technical problems. Understanding the needs and requirements of the end users is important in putting these technologies to work, but selling technology to decision makers is of critical concern. In business, marketing links innovation with end users and decision makers, but how do we make these links in the Federal system?

Mr. Berwick has been the Army Program Manager for the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation for the past five years.  Mr. Berwick works with the Army and the Department of Defense to streamline historic preservation processes and provide cost effective, programmatic solutions to historic preservation issues.  Prior to his current position, he worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Memphis District and St. Paul District for nearly 20 years.  Mr. Berwick holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Blom,
Ronald

Imaging radar data has been used to detect archaeological sites for over two decades. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (FFRDC operated by the California Institute of Technology) has been a technology leader in both airborne and spaceborne imaging radar systems. Technological innovations over this time have made radar data increasingly useful for archaeological applications. Despite some notable successes, imaging radar is not widely used in archaeological surveys for a variety of reasons which include lack of effective partnerships between technologists and archaeologists, and lack of standard protocols for use of the data. Conversely archaeological applications to date have imposed additional requirements on the data processing, particularly in the realm of geographic precision, suggesting new engineering protocols which have significantly increased utility of the data for archaeological purposes. This paper provides a history of the use and development of radar as a tool for archaeological discovery. This begins with the recognition of “radar rivers” in the Sahara, through applications at Angkor and Petra; and culminates with the current, more refined technology that is being used in discovery of Mayan sites in Central America and, perhaps most importantly, to the operationalizing of this technology for Phase I site discovery in the United States.

A Geologist specializing in applications of space technology to Earth science at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, since 1978, Dr.  Blom received his BA in Geology from the University of California - Santa Barbara, an MS in Geology from California State University - Northridge, and a PhD in Geological Remote Sensing from the University of California - Santa Barbara.  His Lead Scientist, Terrestrial Sciences Research Element, Earth and Space Sciences Division, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.  He also is Program Manager, Solid Earth and Natural Hazards, Earth Science and Technology Directorate, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, and Adjunct Professor of Geology at San Diego State University. Prior to these positions, Dr. Blom was Expedition Scientist and Navigator, Trans-Arabia Expeditions in Oman (July 1990 and November-December 1991), co-discoverer of the lost “city” of Ubar.  He also is continuing this work as the Mahra Archaeology Project, Yemen Expedition.

Comer,
Douglas

This will be an overview of the remote sensing technologies and uses of Geographic Information System (GIS) that have been most effective in the inventory and evaluation of archaeological sites and the integration of findings into broad installation management programs and activities. I will suggest that such technologies be integrated into standard procedures and guidelines for inventory and evaluation; development of context statements; planning in minimum field testing ground disturbance, with associated monetary savings; and integration of cultural resource concerns into installation operations. Some technology-based protocols, like the use of historic black and white aerial photos (and historic maps) are currently in the mainstream, and should be included in new versions of standards and guidelines for Phase I and II research. Standards and guidelines should also be prepared for the use of GIS technology in both Phase I and II research, in facilities planning, and in monitoring the condition of National Register eligible properties. Other, more recent technologies are clearly useful in finding and evaluating sites (e.g., airborne and satellite multispectral and radar sensing apparatus and remote sensing devices such as ground penetrating radar and magnetometers used on the ground). This paper will provide an update on recent research using these technologies, and report on efforts to devise protocols making the use of them practical for site planning and Phase I and II research.

Douglas C. Comer, Ph.D., is Principal of Cultural Site Research and Analysis, Inc. (CSRM), a company that provides archaeological research services and consultation in cultural resource management, specializing in cultural site management. CSRM is active in the United States, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central America.  Dr. Comer has almost three decades of experience in archaeological research, managing archaeological sites, cultural resource management, satellite and aerial remote sensing, and planning and design for site development and protection, and is internationally recognized as an expert in these fields.  He has been the Chief of the US National Park Service Applied Archaeology Center,  a Fulbright Scholar in cultural resource management, the Chair of the Maryland Governors Advisory Committee on Archaeology, and is currently on the Board of Trustees for the United States Committee for the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), as well as being Chair of the US/ICOMOS Archaeological heritage Management Committee and Vice-President for North America of the International Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management  for ICOMOS. He is the recipient of numerous grants for the development of aerial and satellite remote sensing technologies and GIS for archaeological research and cultural resource preservation, and has published extensively on archaeology and cultural site and landscape management, including the book Ritual Ground, published by the University of California Press.

Gray,
Christopher

Mr. Gray is an international specialist in the documentation and survey of historic buildings and landscapes.  He is leading Spatial Geomatics, a unique, new Division within Mollenhauer Group with specialized professional staff and cutting technology and infrastructure focused on providing accurate as-built survey data of historic and complicated buildings.  From 1996 to 2002, Mr. Gray served as Deputy Director of Documentation for the Getty Conservation Institute.  Prior to that position, he worked with the Historic Building Consultancy in London and as head of survey procurement for English Heritage.  At English Heritage, he was Responsible for policy and procedures of commercial procurement of survey services for all 400 plus very major historic properties in the care of English Heritage. Led use of cutting edge technology in applications for British heritage management - projects included Stonehenge, Westminster Abbey and Hadrian’s Wall.

Knoerl,
John

Geographic Information System (GIS) is most often thought of as a tool for managing resources at the local and state levels of geography. Business, real estate, health services, education, natural and culture resource management applications are fairly commonplace and are being used to good effect. The use of GIS as a tool in the arena of public policy and legislation is not as widespread as more traditional applications, noted above. Legislators, their staff, advocates and opponents rarely use GIS to analyze the impact of preservation legislation. Yet many parts of preservation laws are replete with spatial provisions. If GIS were used to evaluate or predict the intended (as well as the unintended) effects of such proposed laws, then the legislative process would be well served and possibly better legislation and preservation would result.

Recently the New York State Assembly debated the merits of two alternative income tax credit proposals for rehabilitating historic residential houses. Such a comparison would have been impossible using anecdotal data. However, by employing GIS as a tool, quantitative data on who would benefit from each proposal was clearly determined and brought into the debate. GIS analyses elevated the discussion from the realm of anecdotes and speculation to the quantitative and comprehensive treatment of the issue. Many important questions were answered. For example, how many historic homes would qualify under each proposal? How many of these homes are located in each Assembly, Senate, and Congressional District? Are they located in urban or rural areas? How many are owner-occupied?

What is the racial and ethnic diversity of neighborhood having these homes? What is the average value of homes in neighborhoods having historic homes? What are the monthly mortgage costs, and what is the Median Family Income for neighborhoods having these historic homes? Creating this database allowed the author to peer into the demographic heart and soul of New York State’s 700+ National Register Districts for the first time ever, and provided a unique tool to inform preservation policy.

This paper will detail the technological challenges and requirements behind creation of this database and its use and effectiveness for enhancing and advancing public policy.

John Knoerl received his B.S. in Tourism, Travel, and Transportation from Niagara University in 1971; B.A. in Anthropology from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1972; and M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1975 and 1988 respectively.  From 1974 through 1978, he directed archaeological surveys and excavations in upstate New York for the SUNY-Binghamton Public Archaeology Facility.  In 1978 he joined the National Park Service, where he has served as a preservation planner and National Register of Historic Places review archaeologist.  Currently he the program manager for the Cultural Resources GIS Facility, located in HABS/HAER/HALS Division, which develops Geographic Information Systems databases, remote sensing, and Global Positioning Systems applications and tools for historic preservation programs throughout the country.

Kvamme,
Kenneth

The Department of Defense (DoD) administers 25 million acres of public land containing significant historic and prehistoric cultural resources. The effectiveness of numerous remote sensing methods, new analytical tools, and data integration methodologies for detecting subsurface cultural resources are currently being appraised as part of a research project supported by the SERDP. Sub-meter resolution ground-based geophysical (magnetometry, resistivity, conductivity, magnetic susceptibility, ground penetrating radar), aerial (thermal, panchromatic, multispectral), and QuickBird satellite data (panchromatic, multispectral) from several DoD or DOE sites with variable environmental and archaeological conditions have been integrated in a GIS environment. Data has been acquired and investigated from the following locations: Fort Riley, KS; Fort Bliss, TX; Fort Benning, GA; land adjacent to the DOE Savannah River Complex, SC; a fortified village in South Dakota; and a historic church in Arkansas.

Several approaches to data integration are explored. Manual vectorization of anomalies and their overlaying in a composite graphic is an effective but labor-intensive approach. Supervised classifiers are most effective in producing accurate composites, but require known membership that necessitates pre-knowledge of the site formed only by prior excavation or clear signatures in the imagery. Red-green-blue color composites and the use of overlaid translucencies yield more objective and rapid means of integrating primary data. The use of thresholds in each continuous data set allows definition of significant anomalies, and subsequent Boolean combinations produce insightful fusions. Mathematical sums, products, and mappings of local maxima across multiple dimensions are also effective. Principal components and factor analyses give insights into underlying relationships, forming excellent fusions, and K-means cluster analyses produce natural and interpretable data groupings.

Taken together, integrated remote sensing data gives unprecedented insights about the content and layout of subsurface archaeological features. Sampling designs have been implemented and limited archaeological excavations are underway as to test inferences generated by the data fusions. The results of this study, if validated, will promote greater use of remote sensing such that more might be learned about sites and high expenditures of funds, labor, and the damage associated with traditional archaeological excavations, are avoided.

Kenneth L. Kvamme (Ph.D. 1983, University of California, Santa Barbara) is Associate Professor at the University of Arkansas where he is Director of the Archeo-Imaging Lab, faculty member of the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies, and teaches courses in GIS science, geophysical remote sensing, and archaeology in the Departments of Anthropology, Geosciences, and Environmental Dynamics.  Kvamme has experience in geomagnetics, electrical resistivity, electromagnetics, thermal remote sensing, and ground penetrating radar surveys, with successful large-scale projects throughout the United States and Europe. From 1993-1998 he was the W. M. Keck Associate Professor of Archaeology and Remote Sensing at Boston University, and held earlier appointments at the Universities of Arizona and Denver. He has also worked and consulted for government agencies and private companies, has taught courses in several European universities, and regularly offers training workshops in GIS and remote sensing across the country. He is widely published with articles in archaeological remote sensing, geophysics, and spatial analysis and is Associate Editor for the journal Archaeological Prospection, and sits on the Advisory Boards of Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory and Journal of Quantitative Anthropology. 

Limp,
Fredrick

DoD facilities, particularly cantonments, frequently have many structures that may be eligible for or listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The accurate recordation of these historic structures can often be a critical element in their management. Developments in ground-based light detection and ranging (LIDAR), through software for processing these data and innovative methods in terrestrial photogrammetry, are yielding timely and cost effective alternative approaches to traditional strategies for recordation. However, there remain significant research efforts before these methods can be fully effective for routine heritage management activities.

Ground based LIDAR offers great potential for accurate and dense characterization of structures and 2 ½ dimensional terrain. This application of time of flight (TOF) and amplitude modulated carrier wave (AMCW) laser ranging technology is still relatively new and there remain many unexplored issues. In particular, unlike most traditional and accepted photogrammetric systems, which require extensive user interaction for both collection and analysis, TOF LIDAR systems produce a dense 3D point cloud in short order with little user interaction. However, the resulting point clouds tend to be very large and contaminated with random error resulting from laser range and azimuth uncertainties. Extracting useful dimensional information from this complex data requires extensive user interaction that rivals - and often exceeds - interaction required by photogrammetric systems.

Making ground-based LIDAR more economical and effective by automating feature extraction from the point cloud is therefore an important area of research with considerable implication for heritage management. Expressions based on experimentation and sampling theory that relate point spacing to extractable feature details would help to minimize the size of the point cloud for any particular application and thus make architectural feature extraction more tractable. Improved tools are needed to automate 3D feature extraction and provide meaningful measures of feature accuracy. While all LIDAR manufacturers provide accuracy statements, they are typically based on measurements under optimum conditions and are overly simplistic. Easy to implement and robust methods to derive accuracy under typical field conditions are still needed. Integrating digital photographs onto the point cloud data provides important management data and can also lead to improved feature extraction. For example, extracting the 3D edge of a building from a point cloud might be guided from a spectrally extracted edge from an image whose camera is aligned with the point cloud making the resulting edge delineation more robust.

Dr. Limp is University Professor in the Departments of Anthropology, Geosciences and the Environmental Dynamics Program at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and Director of the University of Arkansas' Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST). He is a contributing editor for GeoWorld magazine and writes extensively in that journal and others on spatial technology issues. He was one of the founders of the Open GIS Consortium (OGC) and served on its Board of Directors and has also served as the Treasurer of the Society for American Archaeology.