A complete new view of Stonehenge’s landscape

作者：Renata Barradas Gutiérrez

Geospatial technologies are reshaping how archaeologists study and unlock history’s secrets. Stonehenge, one of the most famous landmarks and studied monuments in the United Kingdom, is being revealed with modern tools after centuries of excavations and theories. With more than 10,000 years of history, this UNESCO World Heritage site, including the wider landscape where it sits, has been digitally mapped to disclose hundreds of new features, brightening our understanding of this iconic cultural landscape.

To solve its mysteries, archaeologists from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (LBI ArchPro) and the University of Birmingham used geospatial technologies, such as laser scanning, magnetometry and ground penetrating radar combined with geographic information systems (GIS) and GNSS positioning, to创建数字模型。模型include visible and invisible archaeological features that are part of a unified digital map。

Thisfive-year archaeology project实现了传统的发掘方法将需要几十年的时间才能完成。巨石阵隐藏的景观项目是同类最大的努力，revealing hidden monumentsaround the area to understand how they interconnect with Stonehenge and its surrounding sacred landscape, and the people who built them.

Tools for non-invasive archaeology

The project, initiated in 2010, has the goal to create a detailed digital archaeological map of the entire landscape around Stonehenge through a seamless survey of the areas between known monuments using state-of-the-art geophysical surveys and remote sensing techniques.

To achieve this, non-invasive prospection methods were used to map the visible and invisible:
• Leica Geosystems robotic total stations and field software
• Leica Geosystems GNSS and GPS systems
•高分辨率玛格尼tometer prospection
•接地穿透雷达（GPR）
• Electromagnetic induction
• 3D laser scanning

新的data retrieved with all this equipment threw light upon 10,000 years of human progressand the culture and people that flourished around them. The measurementdata from ground-penetrating radar, high-resolution magnetometers and 3D laser scanning and geophysical instruments were combined within a GIS and then analysed to produce a multilayer digital map that shows how the landscape developed over thousands of years。

Finding lost monuments in vacant space

Thebiggest geophysical prospection survey ever done全球导致发现几个未知古迹in the space surrounding the well-known stone circle.

“Developing non-invasive methods to document our cultural heritage is one of the greatest challenges of our time and can only be accomplished by adapting the latest technology, such as ground-penetrating radar arrays and high-resolution magnetometers,”said Professor Wolfgang Neubauer, director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute.“The developments of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology offers the opportunity to carry out fundamental archaeological research at a scale and precision never previously attempted。”

GPR与Leica GeosystemsGNSS antennas were used to map the underground with a geo-referenced local coordinate system。使用Leica Geosystems GPS系统，LBI考古学家可以建立一个控制点网络，用于跟踪测量设备。地理参考方法的厘米准确性和速度对于此任务至关重要。

As part of the challenges, the team had to develop all motorised systems and keep them running on site while accomplishing the work in short time periods. Repairs, modifications and developments had to be done on site and on their own. Prof. Neubauer and his team used Leica Geosystems GNSS and Leica Geosystems robotic total stations to track and navigate the novel motorized survey tools and to georeference the exact position of the “anomalies” revealed by the survey.

Anomalies detected by GPR in 2013, originally believed to be buried stones, have been staked out using Leica Geosystems total stations at Durrington Walls, 3 kilometres from the stone circle. The following excavations proofed the anomalies to be the stony refill of large pits for massive timber posts forming a major monument with a diameter of more than 500 metres predating the stone circle. The excavation project used fully 3D digital documentation including Leica Geoystems total stations and was awardedbest project in the UK in 2016 by British Archaeology。

Ancient engineering ambitions revealed

Stonehenge is not isolated in its landscape. The findings helped to conceive Stonehenge, at the heart of a fast evolving and dynamic sacred landscape with a size of40 kilometres squared。由于技术的进步和知识，对前所未有的规模和解决方案进行了调查，并揭示了幸存的古迹与许多其他属于失落文明的新纪念碑之间的复杂互连。这使科学家和研究人员能够将所有内容放在一张大局中 - 可以准确讲述巨石阵的故事，作为神圣景观的一部分。

只有通过查看周围的古迹以及景观的发展，才能理解巨石阵。使用尖端，多传感器技术，可以发现许多考古结构，例如杜灵顿墙的新大型木材纪念碑。该调查的结果包括17种新的新石器时代，包括手推车，亨格斯，沟渠和巨大的史前坑，可追溯到以前的时期，当代和之后的巨石阵时。新发现是为了庆祝太阳的通道，将其位置与景观联系起来，支持巨石阵的仪式意义及其在英格兰索尔兹伯里平原上的景观。

重塑这一代的巨石阵

What was initially carved with stone and bone tools has been unveiled with 21st century geospatial technology. The hundreds of new-discovered features allowed researchers to produce a more detailed archaeological digital map, thus, revealing the big picture of Stonehenge. Leica Geosystems equipment helped archaeologists to trace the marks of humans that occupied the landscape during the last 10,000 years and to contextualise the site in space and time into digital maps, which will guide how Stonehenge and its landscape are studied in the future.