Remote sensing in archaeology : an explicitly North American perspective /

Remote sensing, both aerial and near surface, promises to revolutionize archaeology and cultural resources management, if only archaeologists pay attention to its promises and accomplishments and adopt its techniques. This work should get their attention and convince them of its worth. By far the best introduction to the use of aerial imagery and geophysical techniques available for archaeologists today, it covers the full range of remote sensing from satellite imagery and aerial photographs to near-surface magnetometry, conductivity, resistivity, ground-penetrating radar, and magnetic susceptibility. Missing is light detection and ranging, or LIDAR, probably too new for inclusion. Each chapter that describes one of these techniques provides a clear overview, guidelines for its use, and situations where it might not be effective, and furnishes compelling examples of its application (with additional color illustrations of these applications on the CD-ROM included as an appendix). Other chapters describe cost-benefit calculations, the simultaneous use of several techniques, and the congruence of subsequent excavation with the images and expectations generated by various remote sensing techniques. The conclusion is inescapable: if remote sensing is adopted widely and used intelligently, it will provide the foundations for better archaeology and the means for more effective preservation of historic resources. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All archaeologists and practitioners of cultural resources management. C. S. Peebles Indiana University-Bloomington