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This book provides a bird's eye look at the monumental achievements of Britain's earliest inhabitants. Arranged thematically, it illustrates and describes a wide selection of archaeological sites and landscapes dating from between 500,000 years ago and the Roman conquest. Timothy Darvill brings to life many of the familiar sites and monuments that prehistoric communities built, and exposes to view many thousands of sites that simply cannot be seen at ground level. Throughout the book, he makes a unique application of social archaeology to the field of aerial photography.
Historical archives of vertical photographs and satellite images acquired for other purposes (mainly declassified military reconnaissance) offer considerable potential for archaeological and historical landscape research. They provide a unique insight into the character of the landscape as it was over half a century ago, before the destructive impact of later 20th century development and intensive land use. They provide a high quality photographic record not merely of the landscape at that time, but offer the prospect of the better survival of remains reflecting its earlier history, whether manifest as earthworks, cropmarks or soilmarks. These various sources of imagery also provide an opportunity to examine from the air areas of Europe and beyond whose skies are still not open to traditional archaeological aerial reconnaissance. Tens of millions of such images are held in archives around the world, but their research potential goes very largely untapped. A primary aim of this volume is to draw to wider attention the existence, scope and potential access to historical archival aerial and satellite photographs, in order to encourage their use in a range of archaeological and landscape research. By drawing attention to this massive archival resource, providing examples of its successful application to archaeological/landscape questions, and offering advice how to access and utilise the resource, the volume seeks to bring this material to wider attention, demonstrate its huge potential for archaeology, encourage its further use and stimulate a new approach to archaeological survey and the study of landscape evolution internationally. ​
Both the techniques and the scope of air-photography made great advances during the twentieth century. As a result, a mass of material is available to the archaeologist and the local historian. First published in 1982, this was the first comprehensive textbook to explain in detail how to identify archaeological and historical sites from the air. Unavailable for more than ten years, this new edition will be widely welcomed - not least for the addition of a section of colour photographs. Accurate interpretation requires an understanding of the whole landscape. Archaeological sites are not always easily distinguished from geological features or from those produced by agriculture or by industrial, modern military or sporting activities. A wide selection of both archaeological and non-archaeological material is therefore illustrated in the book's 150 air-photographs. Close attention is paid to the nature of the physical remains in the ground and to the processes whereby they can appear on air-photographs. This requires an understanding of these processes - from the turning of the soil to the printing of the photograph. Throughout, the perils of misidentification receive as much consideration as the principles of correct interpretation. The types of site covered in the book are those of the British Isles but the techniques are applicable throughout continental Europe and beyond.
At certain times of the day - at sunrise, and sunset - the outlines of prehistoric fields, barrows and hill-forts in the British landscape may be thrown into relief. Such 'shadow sites', best seen from above, and captured by an airborne camera, are both examples of, and metaphors for, a particular way of seeing the landscape. At a time of rapid modernisation and urbanisation in mid-twentieth-century Britain, an archaeological vision of the British landscape reassured and enchanteda number of writers, artists, photographers, and film-makers. From John Piper, Eric Ravilious and Shell guide books, to photographs of bomb damage, aerial archaeology, and The Wizard of Oz, Kitty Hauser delves into evocative interpretations of the landscape and looks at the affinities betweenphotography as a medium to capture traces of the past as well as their absence.