I'd very much like to see this done in the UK.

Also agents analyzing drought pictures, where many ancient UK structures seem to appear would be an easy win. I've never checked whether there's a comprehensive drought picture map of the UK.

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a day ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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TSiege a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's been going on for years in the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/may/27/hobb...

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bobosola a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The National Library of Scotland has LIDAR imagery for all of the UK. Go to https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/ then pick a LIDAR layer as the background. This motivated me to make my own high-res LIDAR images on my hobby site (https://solentmaps.uk/) of my home area using QGIS with free government data in order to uncover interesting things. It has old OS maps of the UK (1880s to date) with a LIDAR layer for my local area (south Hampshire).

	▲	DrBazza a day ago \| parent [-]
		I'm far less interested in LIDAR as it relies on height change. The drought pictures are a better source of new discovery in the UK as we tend to bury buildings or plough over them (see my other comment below). Those pictures would be very appropriate for AI bots to look at and make discoveries.

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philipwhiuk a day ago | parent | prev [-]

The UK landmass is really quite small compared to central America. I'd be surprised if there are many substantial structures left - geophys has been around a long time.

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DrBazza a day ago | parent [-]

Well, that's why I explicitly mentioned the drought pictures - LIDAR uncovers structures due to change in the terrain height once vegetation is 'removed', whereas drought pictures are grasses growing poorly on top of buried structures or their foundations. That's a very UK/European thing where a lot of the history has been covered up or ploughed over.

Just near me, a Roman road about 5km long was discovered last year by exactly this method. That's a non-trivial discovery. There was also a large Roman villa complex discovered the same way.

For LIDAR and structures, you're likely correct - there's vanishingly obvious structures left to discover that way.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52911797

"Roman forts, roads, military camps and villas have been identified by a new analysis of aerial photographs taken in the 2018 heatwave across Wales.

Scorched crop marks uncovered about 200 ancient sites during the drought.

Experts say the Roman finds are key pieces in the jigsaw to understand how Wales was conquered and dominated 2,000 years ago.

Researcher Toby Driver said the discoveries "turn everything we know about the Romans on its head"."

	▲	philipwhiuk a day ago \| parent [-]
		Geophysical surveys find buried structures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophysical_survey_(archaeolog.... I was obviously not talking about surface structures - nobody's missing Tintagel Castle because we're not full of dense jungle. Drought is really a more blatant mechanism to discover what ground penetrating radar will tell you, but only works if the surface is amenable.