A multi-national team of archaeologists are using LIDAR laser scanning and magnetometry to locate settlements and artefacts buried beneath the surface across Greece’s Cyclades islands.
The “Small Cycladic Islands Project” surveyed 87 uninhabited islands, many of them for the first time.
“Our questions were simple. Were these now-uninhabited islands – some of which are big, some of which are small, some of which are rugged, some of which are very beautiful – used by people at any point in the past?” said Evan Levine from the University of Copenhagen.
“If so, how were they used, and how does that change our perspective of these kinds of archipelago environments where big islands, small islands, coastlines, and the sea itself are all working together to dictate how people live?”
To minimise disturbance to fragile sites, the team relied on non-destructive methods.
Magnetometry, newly applied in the Cyclades, measures variations in the soil’s magnetic properties to detect underground features such as stone walls, building foundations, and even the traces of ancient lightning strikes.
Complementing this, LIDAR surveys from drones and aircraft use laser pulses to penetrate vegetation and create detailed topographic maps. The technique, which has revealed lost cities in Mesoamerica and Southeast Asia, is now reshaping archaeological exploration in Greece.
Many of the project findings are from 3000 to 1000 BC, periods when the region was home to the Cycladic culture, Minoans from Crete, and Mycenaeans from mainland Greece. But surprisingly, Evan and his colleagues have also found artefacts that points to earlier human presence on the Cyclades from the Neolithic and possibly the Palaeolithic periods.
Levine plans to expand this work using machine learning alongside LIDAR, and he is bringing these emerging tools back into the classroom at the University of Copenhagen. “Whether you’re studying archaeology or historical documents, these methods are opening new ways of understanding our past,” he says.
The team’s findings appear in Antiquity and the Journal of Archaeological Science, with more research forthcoming in Hesperia and the Journal of Greek Archaeology.
Header Image Credit : The Small Cycladic Islands Project
Sources : University of Copenhagen
