Day 4
Detailed paper information
| Paper title | Declassified satellite imagery as new baseline data products for archaeology and cultural heritage management: the U.S. CORONA missions |
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| Form of presentation | Poster |
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| Abstract text |
Remote sensing technologies and data products play a central role in the assessment, monitoring and protection of archaeological sites and monuments. Their importance will only increase, as the correlated effects of climate change, socioeconomic conflicts and unmitigated land use are set to increase pressure on much of the world's known and buried archaeological heritage. In this context, the declassified satellite imagery produced by the U.S. CORONA missions (late 1950s to early 1970s) are of particular value. Not only are they in the public domain and obtainable at very low cost (both of these are key factors for disciplines as starved for resources as archaeology and cultural heritage management). But they also represent photographic memories of some of mankind's oldest centres of civilization, prior to the full impact of industrial agriculture and modern infrastructural developments. In some cases, these images are of spectacular quality, portraying ancient sites and monuments of the Near and Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa before the advent of modern irrigation, the construction of hydro dams, urban sprawl and other processes that would inevitably damage or destroy much of the global archaeological record. While the value of historical satellite imagery has been recognized for a long time, processing and providing these precious sources of information at a ready-to-use level (i.e. as georeferenced and orthorectified data products) has long been confined to local and regional case studies. After all, there is little commercial value in the images themselves, and customized solutions are required to compensate for the extreme geometric distortions produced by panoramic cameras of the CORONA missions. More recently, however, open source GIS solutions have been developed that allow efficient processing and publication of CORONA scene images. These developments were made possible by a cooperation between the German Archaeological Institute and the German GIS company mundialis GmbH, with generous funding by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, resulting in a implemenation of the efficient orthorectification of declassified CORONA satellite scene in open source GRASS GIS that has been thoroughly tested and is now used for mass analysis of declassified CORONA satellite scenes. The long-term aim of these investments is to provide open methods, tools and data products that will establish CORONA and other sources of declassified imagery as convenient baseline products in the domains of archaeology and cultural heritage management. |