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17th August 2010, 08:12 AM
(This post was last modified: 17th August 2010, 08:16 AM by Stephen Jack.)
Kel can you expand on why the aerial photograph I think is a banjo enclosure is something else.
http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/the-...ure-hunter
DIYdrones is a very interesting place, but its not your run of the mill forum. I've been on there since it started and it has some quirks. This is an article you should read, it may even have some relevance to Archaeology.
TradeCraft in the Long Tail
http://lewisshepherd.wordpress.com/2008/...long-tail/
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17th August 2010, 09:42 AM
I've been involved in a banjo enclosure student dig the last couple of summers and looked at a range of reports/photos/papers when researching them for an assignment. I've just not come across one where the enclosure looks so perfectly circular and the entrance is so perfectly linear. To my - admittedly inexpert - eye, they don't seem to be planned and laid out as carefully as the one in your photo.
I'm very happy to be contradicted though - am still just learning the ropes.
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17th August 2010, 10:16 AM
I've probably recorded thirty banjos from APs, and I've never seen one so regular. Does it appear on any other photographs (I don't just mean GE)? What is the scale? what is the landscape setting? Have you examined the historic maps. I'm certainly not saying that its not a banjo, it would just take a lot more than that to convince me that its is not a fertilizer pattern, which is what it appears to be more like.
I'm even less convinced by your AP2 and AP3. There are some earthworks in the settlement, but why do you think they are Roman? I'm not even sure where the site is on AP3.
Please don't go away thinking that because I'm not gung ho for your banjo, that archaeologists are elitist or something. I do occasionally get emailed with things people have found on Google, and they turn out to be genuine sites. However, as soon as someone says that they have invented a kite/balloon/flying saucer which will revolutioise aerial archaeology, I start backing away...
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17th August 2010, 10:37 AM
Interestingly I think it is a banjo... ( :face-kiss: ) Though as Kel says, they are rarely perfect like that one...
see
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamishfenton/4876772214/
But they do exist...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamishfenton/4752616431/
Strangely, I had just read that very article, as I was researching octocopters and other forms of remote recording... utilising stable photographic platforms and photomodeller scanner to create 3D images of the topography with point clouds and photo texture mapping. How weird is that.
The article is technical, but cuts right into the heart of what is possible in utilising remote vehicle recon. I was most impressed about the mini barges in shallows.
Anyway... I am willing to put my foot where my mouth is... and say... Banjo!
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17th August 2010, 05:13 PM
Nice! Thanks BAJR - interesting stuff.
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17th August 2010, 10:32 PM
AP1 I have several photographs both winter and summer. There are several features, which show up as crop marks, there is also an oval shape on the top of the plateau which shows up in low angles photographs as a variation in the surface. The 'banjo" is about 250m from the oval on the gentle part of a donward slope. "Banjo" to stream at the bottom of the slope 200m. There is a roman villa 300m up stream same side set back from the stream 100m. There is also a spring which runs even in the worst droughts. There is not much of a subsoil layer, its usually topsoil then rock. There are several large blocks of white quarts up to 12 inches across in the "banjo" area. Lenght of paralel lines 80m approx, the diameter of the circle I need to check.
AP2 Assumed to be roman. Roman finds were excavated 20-30 years from the area under the farm building next to the headge. The site in the photograph was discovered last year. A road runs down hill 250m to either a road or stream. No trace of the road is visible after the stream, there is a old track running paralel to the stream
AP3 D:Ioes need more work.
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17th August 2010, 10:42 PM
AP 1 looks like tractor tram tracks leading to a circular anomaly that may be archaeological, but it's tricky to tell the scale with the lack of reference points. I know very little about banjo enclosures, but it looks very unlike the ones that hostie posted
AP 2 I can see a lot of ridge and furrow earthworks, partly ploughed out/overgrown around what is presumably a medieval village centre that has remained as a village centre. Can't see anything obviously Roman in that
AP 3 actually seems the most convincing - there seems to be a possible rectilinear ditched enclosure to the right of the track. At least two sides are visible. At a guess I'd say IA rather than Roman.
But hey, I know nothing about APs or Romans.
has to be said if the mystery group referred to on the other thread is the one I think it is, these are more convincing than most of their output.
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17th August 2010, 11:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 17th August 2010, 11:05 PM by Stephen Jack.)
AP1 Its not tractor tracks, the lines are too wide and in the summer these lines have greater crop growth. When I get home next week I will post the other photographs.
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18th August 2010, 12:06 AM
Quote:AP1 Its not tractor tracks, the lines are too wide and in the summer these lines have greater crop growth. When I get home next week I will post the other photographs.
OK so it's not tractor tram tracks, but the circular feature in the photo appears very diffuse for a rock cut ditch cropmark to me. Also the relative proportions of the features strike me as unusual for a banjo. Does this clearly resemble any other known examples? Willing to be less sceptical if there are.
AP2 and AP3 I would echo trainedchimp's analysis. But find the AP3 again quite diffuse for archaeology. But hey, what do I know?
Look forward to seeing some more photos.
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18th August 2010, 07:55 AM
BARJ
I have written an update to that project since with some data examples, a transformation table so that the received GPS data can be loaded into Google Earth. There is also a useful list of mostly free software, eg free bulk data transformation program, software for using the Space Shutter Lidar data, the high power VisIt modelling software and so on. I going to have a read through it all and will probably post it in the next couple of weeks .
