UCL Institute of Archaeology

Kris Lockyear was once again invited to participate in remote sensing teaching by the US National Parks Service.

Every year the US National Parks Service runs a course on Remote Sensing for Archaeology.  Kris first attended the course as a student in 2005 when it was held in Chillicothe, Ohio, and has attended every year since as a tutor, usually specialising in resistance survey.  The course runs for five days each year and combines lectures in the morning, field classes in the afternoon and computing practicals in the evening.  The field classes take place on an archaeological site, often one in the care of the Parks Service.

This year the course was held in Ogallala, Nebraska, a small town on the Oregon Trail where Kris delivered lectures in Remote Sensing in Archaeology and Resistance Survey, ran the resistance survey practicals in the afternoon, and demonstrated data processing for resistance survey in the evenings. The site being surveyed was Alkali Station, a Civil War cavalry post on the trail. Tommy Hailey, a Lecturer from Northwestern State, University of Louisiana, Natchitoches, took some excellent early morning aerial photographs from his powered parachute. The course is to be highly recommended as a way of gaining a broad training in a wide range of methods.

Following the course Kris spent a few days in Denver where he was the guest of Lawrence Conyers, author of Ground Penetrating Radar for Archaeology. Kris delivered a seminar at the University of Denver on the archaeological field techniques used during the Noviodunum Archaeological Project while the many interesting differences between US and UK field techniques were explored.