ABSTRACT
Such holistic approaches require all above-ground remote sensing specialists to use all appropriate sources of data, including balloons, kites, aerial photographs, and satellite imagery in their work. Aerial photography, to which the field of satellite archaeology owes much, has merited a number of books devoted to its usage, as described in Chapter 1. These books, written by career aerial archaeology specialists, discuss the history of aerial archaeology, and general techniques for interpreting this imagery in a wide number of contexts, shown in Figure 2.1. This discussion will not be repeated in detail here, where the focus will be on the archaeological uses of satellites over the past 30 years. However, a general historical background of aerial archaeology allows for the evaluation of the full trajectory of satellite remote sensing and its uses in archaeology. This includes how the field developed in relationship to satellite endeavors in remote sensing, NASA’s space program, anthropology, and geography. A generalized history of archaeology is also not appropriate: The field of remote sensing has developed independently of archaeology, while the usage of satellites in archaeology cannot outwardly be associated with any particular theoretical movement, although earlier technical developments seem to be connected to
the “New Archaeology” scientific movement of the late 1960s-early 1970s (Renfrew et al. 1966). Remote sensing in archaeology is more closely connected with generalized developments of the field of remote sensing rather than archaeological trends over the past 35 years.
