Research project S0/67/61b (Research action S0)
Context and objectives
Since 15 years an international team of archaeologists and scientists of several disciplines, such as biology, geology, geomorphology, geophysics and computer science, are studying and gathering knowledge of human behaviour and their interaction with the environment on the ancient city of Sagalassos, Turkey and its territory. Since more than 10 years they participate actively together in the yearly excavations and field surveys and form one of the largest interdisciplinary groups in archaeological research.
At this moment, most of the information is gathered by very intensive and time consuming survey and excavation techniques. Up to now, only the earth scientists already used existing remotely sensed (space) imagery to study lineaments and reflectance characteristics of the area, but just extracted some general information mainly because of the too coarse spectral and/or spatial resolutions.
Remote sensing techniques such as imaging spectroscopy and lidar with very detailed spatial and spectral information could to a large extend contribute to solve these problems. These data could provide a lot of crucial information to the several scientific disciplines, accelerate research, stimulate interdisciplinarity and would largely contribute to the presentation of the ongoing activities and research to the public on the site of Sagalassos
Methodology
The rationale of this project will be based on:
1/ the flight campaign with an Imaging Spectrometer and a Laserscanner onboard of a suitable aircraft over the Sagalassos area
2/ on ground observations during the flight: reflectance measurements connected with photos and video images of the different landscape units. These data will be connected for visualizing the IS and Laser scan data.
3/ processing of all data to correct for geometry and atmospheric influences.
4/ interdisciplinary connection of IS and lidar data with archaeological, biological, geological and geomorphological observations and where necessary laboratory data
5/ interdisciplinar image interpretation and mapping
Results
For this project a number of interdisciplinary research topics related to the city of Sagalassos and its surroundings are selected for their relevance to a broad public and for which a significant need and demand exists among the scientists. These topics are very relevant to our times and allow to demonstrate the benefit of the use remote sensing and it’s contribution to resolve scientific questions. This projects also aims to show the different processing stages – and hence the relevance of high tech – necessary to obtain the final results. The defined topics are:
-) Map of the city of Sagalassos and its surroundings
-) Vegetation mapping of the area
-) Mapping of historically polluted areas
-) Mapping of the distribution of erosion and colluviation zones and field terraces
