Abstract:
This paper builds upon the work of Jones and Bickler (2017) which examined the potential for LiDAR to assist in the recording and heritage management of archaeological sites in New Zealand. Here we explore multi-scalar approaches targeting archaeological features of varying sizes across typical terrain and under variable vegetation types. The reasons for this work include the difficulty of access to large areas of New Zealand either because they are remote and less likely to be developed or they remain under some form of dense vegetative coverage which may be difficult to characterise without detailed vegetation clearance. Such areas often contain archaeological sites that are difficult to locate and map in detail even when the archaeological features are large. LiDAR’s advantage, from an archaeological perspective, is that the terrain models generated can be examined using semi-automatic and machine-aided methods which are scalable for local and regional surveys. In the context of New Zealand archaeological survey, LiDAR data follows on from the highly successful aerial photography approaches undertaken by archaeologists such as Kevin Jones (Jones 1994, 1996, 2002; Jones and Tanner 2002; see also Gorbey 1967). LiDAR provides complementary information from aerial and satellite imagery, and modern techniques often combine the data from multiple sources for archaeological survey. We describe here work undertaken to identify new archaeological sites of Māori origin in the Waikato.