Preliminary Archeological Site Survey by UAV-Borne Lidar: A Case Study

Preliminary analysis of an archaeological site requires the acquisition of information by several diverse diagnostic techniques. Remote sensing plays an important role especially in spatially extended and not easily accessible sites for the purposes of preventive and rescue archaeology, landscape archaeology, and intervention planning. In this paper, we present a case study of a detailed topographic survey based on a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor carried by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV; also known as drone). The high-resolution digital terrain model, obtained from the cloud of points automatically labeled as ground, was searched exhaustively by an expert operator looking for entrances to prehistoric hypogea. The study documents the usefulness of such a technique to reveal anthropogenic structures hidden by vegetation and perform fast topographic documentation of the ground surface.

Automated summary

This paper presents a case study of using remote sensing with a LiDAR sensor carried by a UAV for detailed topographic survey at archaeological sites. Expert operators searched for prehistoric hypogea entrances in the high-resolution digital terrain model obtained from the ground-labeled point cloud. The study demonstrates the utility of this technique in revealing hidden anthropogenic structures and quickly documenting ground surface topography.