The Integration of VHR Satellite Imagery, GPR Survey and Boring for Archaeological Prospection at the Longcheng Site in Anhui Province, China

This paper is focused on the joint use of non-invasive and minimal intervention techniques for supporting archaeological prospection. Very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery analysis and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and boring surveys were integrated for the study of the Longcheng site, located near Hefei city in Anhui Province, China, to test their effectiveness and efficiency in prospecting archaeological remains and evaluating their degree of preservation. First, target locations of potential archaeological structures were identified on a WorldView-2 (WV-2) satellite image through spatial and radiometric enhancement, interpretation and object-oriented classification. Second, archaeological features extracted from the WV-2 imagery were further investigated by a GPR survey that provided detailed cross-checking information about buried remains. Finally, a subsequent boring survey was conducted across those prospective archaeological structures in order to map the stratigraphic sequences on the basis of colour, compactness and the inclusions contained in the soil, and then to test their correspondence with the GPR data. The boring led to detailed confirmation of the results produced by the remote sensing analyses and GPR surveys, as well as the discovery of datable artefacts. On the basis of all the integrated data, the preliminary layout and structure of the Longcheng site was reconstructed in GIS. Furthermore, the widths, lengths, heights and burial depths of these buried archaeological structures were estimated in detail.