Lecture 1: Early Pioneers from Wessex to the Middle East

Lecture slides may be downloaded in Adobe PDF format from here.

Archaeology from the air is a nine week course, hands on adult education course run for the WEA at the Nottingham Mechanics Institute (3 North Sherwood Street, Nottingham NG1 4EZ) starting on Tuesday 30th September 2014.  

Over the nine weeks we will explore aerial archaeology from its origins in the years after the First World War to the Space Age.  We'll spend time looking at the history of aerial archaeology and some of the fascinating stories of its pioneers in Britain and beyond and we'll look at some of the techniques of aerial archaeology including practical sessions on where and how to find aerial photographs, air photo interpretation and how to make accurate maps from air photographs.

We'll also consider innovations in aerial archaeology in the modern era including how archaeologists now use imagery from secret US spy satellites, which mapped the world from Space in the 1960s, airborne laser scanning and airborne radar and how 21st century ultra high resolution satellite images allow us to map the archaeology of huge areas from space.