Archaeology Lab

[popeyespappy]

InSAR is primarily useful for detecting small movements of ground surface over time. I am not sure how it would be useful for jungle archeology unless buried archeological structure is causing ongoing subsidence.

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Aerial photography is practically useless in jungle areas because the trees cover everything up, but I remember reading about successes using satellite imagery in central America several years ago. The oldest references I found with a quick Google were about 10 years ago. I thought it was longer ago than that but CRS could be a contributing factor there.

I recall some recent Central American archeological discovery were made using infrared aerial photography, the discovery was based on the fact foliage of different jungle plants look different in infrared, and jungle that regrew over large archeological sites would contain different mix of plants than primitive jungle even after several hundred years.

Apparently it is useful for identifying patterns under the canopy too. Single pass InSAR elevation data from the STS-99 Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) was used to locate previously unknown ruins in the jungle around San Bartolo, Guatemala.