Archaeological prospection from the air in the district around theopen mining of the Cologne Basin in Northrheinwestfalia/Germany-aproject also to evaluate the ability of vertical and oblique aerialphotographs in aerial archaeology

摘要

To work successful in archaeology in the open mining district ofthe Cologne Basin, it is necessary to get knowledge as fare as possibleof what you will see under the surface, when digging into the ground.This knowledge comes by archaeological prospection, with the specialscience disciplines geophysical measurements, geochemical proofs,geoarchaelogical drillings, surface scans and last but not least theaerial archaeology. This remote sensing method is since 1960systematically in work, in the 14400 km2 wide Rhineland-part of Germany.To focus this method specially on the purpose in the three open-mineareas of the Cologne Basin, there was set up a special project runningover one year, financed by the foundation “Stiftung Archaologie imRheinischen Braunkohlenrevier”. A main focus in this project wasto test the abilities of vertical and oblique photos in connection withcolor-infrared film material. The paper describes the project-aims, workand results, illustrated with a few aerial photographs, plots anddigital orthophotos of findings and brings out, what change in aerialarchaeology in the whole Rhineland area is initiated by this project