Google Earth and Archaeology

Postscript: Hurrah!

I tried putting one of Google Earth's videos into this post and it went haywire. Literally, in the blogger edit post WYSIWYG it was flashing. But I managed to perform a dance - Hit button ... Now! Try again! Now! Delete! - and got it back ... video's here.



About.com has an piece examining the use of Google Earth by archaeologists — both professional and amateur.

Many archaeologists regularly use it to find otherwise hidden sites.

An Italian computer programmer playing around on Google Earth's images near his home in Parma discovered the ruins of a villa [kmz]dating to the early Roman Empire.

Many enthusiasts have created layers, placemarks and added additional information.

Find the Archaeology is a game on the Google Earth community bulletin board where people post an aerial photograph of an archaeological site and players must figure out where in the world it is or what in the world it is.

Pompeii

Darfur
Major refugee camps on the Chad side of the border with Darfur in high resolution

• about.com: Google Earth and Archaeology
  
  
• Google Earth
• Archaeology Placemarks
• Ancient Monuments (JQ Jacobs)
  
• Scott Madry
  
• Web lets UNC prof do armchair archaeology
• Find the Archaeology
• Online Archaeology
• Georeferencing with Picasa and Google Earth for archaeologists


• Cara and Supe Valley ruins in Peru
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• GoogleSightseeing
  Pompeii
  Teotihuacán
  

Campaigners have also been using Google Earth to highlight World crises, such as global warming (layers showing rising sea levels) and Darfur (which shows smouldering villages).

This uses Google Earth files which use network links and GE 4 features to show increasingly higher resolution photos as you zoom into areas of concern.

For example, you can see cases of ethnic cleansing where whole villages have been destroyed between March 2006 and November 2006.