Spying in the Past: Satellite Imagery and Archaeology in Southern Mesopotamia

Carrie Hritz, Asst. Professor of Archaeological Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University

Southern Iraq, or ancient Mesopotamia, witnessed the rise and collapse of the earliest urban societies in the ancient world. Archaeologists and ancient historians have long recognized that both the natural (physical and environmental conditions) and the created or cultural landscape (man-made or induced actions) have played an important role in shaping and constraining the development of these societies. In southern Mesopotamia at the intersection of the natural and created ancient landscape was a network of channel systems lined with archaeological sites. Traditionally, these preserved pieces of the ancient cultural landscape have formed one component to larger narratives of social and political evolution in ancient Mesopotamia. This lecture reviews past human environment interaction models developed from large scale and long term archaeological surveys, and demonstrates the necessity for the integration of survey data and recently available remote sensing datasets such as satellite imagery in a GIS (Geographic Information System) for comparison. These data reveal the utility of these new technologies in addressing long standing questions of Mesopotamian history such as the complexity of re-used archaeological features, gaps in our settlement pattern record with the addition of new possible sites, and the location of the main branches of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers during historical periods. For more information about our speaker, please click here. 

PLEASE NOTE LOCATION!!!