Graeme and the Drone

Today's the day . . . . . . . for modern technology

I haven't taken any pictures today - so I thought I would use one that I took yesterday.  It sums up probably the biggest change that I noticed last week in the archaeological world, from the last time that I participated in a Dig.

It is, of course, the use of drones - to hover over an archaeological site and take high quality photographs of what lies below.  There are carefully positioned markers around the perimeter of the site which it includes in the photographs.  The exact position of these markers are then calculated using special GPS equipment and used to align all the photographs.  

This results in a very accurate template showing all the features uncovered and their relative positions to each other.  In the past, this could only have been achieved by lots of manual measuring and a hand-drawn sketch.  

It's all very clever and just one of the ways that modern technology is improving and accelerating the work of the archaeologist ......................