ABSTRACT
Case studies are invaluable for illustrating how specific archaeological projects have implemented satellite remote sensing work in reaction to specific regional issues. This chapter features six remote sensing and survey projects in different regions that contain broad landscape types and diverse archaeological features. These examples appeared appropriate owing to their in-depth approaches to archaeological remote sensing and their placement of satellite archaeology in broader archaeological contexts. By discussing the different approaches each project took, this section will explore how and why each study was successful in its specific context. The studies occur in regions where many remote sensing studies are already taking place and include The Peten (Guatemala), Angkor Wat (Cambodia), Xi’an (China), Ubar (Oman), Homs (Syria), The Delta and Tell-el-Amarna (Egypt). Three of the studies chosen represent regional remote sensing studies in the Middle East. Ubar is representative of desert remote sensing studies. In the cases of Egypt and Syria, one might initially consider them to yield similar floodplain environments, yet each region is ultimately distinct and hence require different approaches. Many ancient cities emerged in floodplains, and with a long history of regional archaeology in the Ancient Near East, an examination of Homs, Syria, emphasizes approaches to studying a single multi-period site in a broader regional content. In Egypt, the case study is broader in scale and compares and contrasts how settlement pattern studies can be conducted in different floodplain regions of the same river system. It is only through generating a detailed discussion of broader projects that other archaeologists can gain insights into how they might model their own remote sensing survey projects.
