Integrated remote sensing approaches for large-scale assessment of cultural heritage: A case study from central Arizona

Cultural resources management in the American Southwest rely mostly on conventional surface survey to establish the presence, distribution, and preservation level of cultural resources. Large swaths of the subcontinent have been covered by pedestrian surveyors since the early boom in cultural resources management. Despite growing criticism of its reliability there are only few signs of modifying survey standards. For example, there is an increasing effort to establish archaeological predicative models to guide survey effort. However, the systematic application of remote sensing survey technologies and their integration into resources management standards has received much less attention. With a long-term research project supported by the Arizona Army National Guard, we seek to remedy this omission and establish a comprehensive survey protocol with the capacity to seamlessly integrate instrumental and conventional survey methods, facilitate cross-disciplinary analysis, and support the comprehensive documentation and assessment of the archaeological  record for a more effective preservation of cultural heritage. This effort involves the standardization and integration of the use of transect recording unit or TRU-based surface surveys, passive and active airborne remote sensing, 3D modelling, multiscalar geophysical prospection, hydrological and vegetation surveys, and computational approaches to data integration and analysis. With a case study from central Arizona, we demonstrate the applicability and utility of this protocol. More specifically, we show that the combination of high-resolution local relief models (LRM) derived from airborne optical survey data using Structure from Motion (SfM) and dense image-matching algorithms and geophysical survey can identify hidden cultural resources.