06 May 2014

Stone Walls Photo Addendum

In the mid-1960s, I took a course where the professor shared his recent consulting work, assessing the value of an airborne lidar profile of the terrain’s elevation in a heavily forested area. We were all impressed that this experimental application of laser light was able to obtain measurements through tree cover.

Today, lidar mapping is an accurate, widely used, cost effective alternative to traditional surveying approaches. Recent work by a doctoral candidate at the University of Connecticut illustrates one interesting application and provides a cool addendum to last Friday’s Stone Walls.

Aerial photograph of a forested area in Connecticut.
(today.uconn.edu/blog/2014/02/hidden-new-england-landscape-comes-to-life/)
Airborne lidar-derived digital elevation model of the forested area in the aerial photograph. Highlighted linear features are dominantly stone walls. (today.uconn.edu/blog/2014/02/hidden-new-england-landscape-comes-to-life/)
Ground photograph of a stone wall from the Connecticut study.
(www.livescience.com/42638-lost-new-england-archaeology-lidar-photos.html)
Airborne lidar-derived digital elevation model showing the site of the ground photograph and highlighted stone wall.
(www.livescience.com/42638-lost-new-england-archaeology-lidar-photos.html)
P.S.

-The University of Connecticut study in the Journal of Archaeological Science:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313004342
-Articles on the study on LiveScience and National Geographic websites:
www.livescience.com/42642-new-englands-lost-archaeological-sites-rediscovered.html
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140103-new-england-archaeology-lidar-science/

2 comments:

  1. Thank you, sir, for posting this. Your link brought me to a comparison of the lidar and the stone wall on the ground, which turned out to be very similar in look to some of what I assumed were "estate walls" in Litchfield county - especially because of the capstones. Here's a recent entry on my blog: http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2014/11/capstones-defined-sort-of.html

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