Application of Remote Sensing in Cultural Heritage Management. Project report 2014

This project was started in 2002 with the overall aim of developing a cost-effective method for surveying and monitoring cultural heritage sites on a regional and national scale. The project focuses on the development of automated pattern recognition methods for detecting and locating cultural heritage sites. The pattern recognition methods are included in a prototype software called CultSearcher. This software currently supports the following: (1) Search for crop marks and soil marks in optical satellite and aerial imagery; these
marks could be levelled grave mounds. (2) Search for pits in airborne laser scanning (ALS) data; these pits could be pitfall traps or charcoal burning pits. (3) Search for heaps in ALS data; these heaps could be Iron Age or Bronze Age grave mounds. This note describes the achievements of the project during 2014. The project is funded by the Norwegian
Directorate for Cultural Heritage. In 2014, the semi-automatic method in CultSearcher for the detection of grave mounds was used in detailed mapping of grave mounds in the Iron Age grave field at Vang, Oppdal minicipality, Sør-Trøndelag County. The same method was used for detailed mapping of grave mounds in selected areas in Larvik municipality, Vestfold County. In Lesja municipality, Oppland County, a combination of automatic pit detection and automatic heap detection was used in the detailed mapping of charcoal kilns Results from the project was presented at the international CAA conference in Paris, April 2014 and at the national seminar CAA-Norge in Oslo, October 2014. The method for mound detection has been accepted for publication in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports in 2015.