Abstract
IN recent years field archaeology has received an unexpected but very valuable addition to its apparatus of investigation, in the shape of air-photography. In suitable country, especially in the down land of southern England, we can look through the veil of the past and see on the air-photographs the dim traces of a long-vanished race; we can detect the lines of field-boundaries and lynchets, of roads and earthworks, all invisible to an observer on the ground. It is shown by Mr. Crawford, in the volume before us, that not only can the features above indicated very often be discovered by means of photography, but also that it is possible to draw from the photographs important inferences as to the relative ages of the earthworks. Mr. Crawford deals particularly with the period of Celtic occupation of England, which may, in his opinion, have begun about 450 B.C., and, no doubt, lasted until the final disappearance of the Romans about A.D. 450. An examination of the air-photographs shows a network of field boundaries, banks and roads associated with upland villages; some of these Were certainly in existence at the coming of the Romans, and some certainly persisted until their departure.
Ordnance Survey Professional Papers.
New Series, No. 7. Air Survey and Archæology. By O. G. S. Crawford. Pp. 39 + 13 plates, 5 diagrams+ 2 maps. (Southampton: Ordnance Survey Office; London: H.M. Stationery Office.) 5s. net.
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Ordnance Survey Professional Papers. Nature 114, 570 (1924). https://doi.org/10.1038/114570c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/114570c0