Ground-based radar, close-range photogrammetry, and digital terrain data applied together to archaeological heritage documentation

Abstract

The importance of archaeological heritage justifies looking for new techniques and methods which allow their knowledge in a more exhaustive way. We are not only talking about detection, but also about remains geometry and construction details. Cultural heritage record documents should include all possible information and the collection of this non-destuctive techniques information is recommended (Neubauer, 2001). In this work we show the preliminary results obtained applying three techniques at an archaeological site in Galicia (Spain), in order to document the remains of a megalithic tomb. First of all, a full topographic total station survey was made to obtain a digital terrain model of the studied area. The GPR investigation was made with Zond- 12c equipment operating with a 900 MHz antenna, radargrams were corrected with the digital terrain data attained hefore. The results showed a very shallow reflector on the top of a small hummock (15 m diameter, 3 m high), very close to an emerging flagstone which could be a part of the tomb. Excavation makes evident the presence of some other flagstones of the tomb at this point. The full archaeological site was excavated and a close-range photogrammetric study was made to obtain a cultural heritage record document including all possible metric information of the remains. A calibrated digital camera was used to obtain the spatial representation of the tomb. This information may be used in the future to reconstruct the tomb in another place, because the contruction of a new highway crossing at this archaeological site is going to take place at some future stage.