Friday, November 28, 2014

LiDar and Illinois Archaeological Mounds

(Earth Mounds)
Image from:
    "Also, as described on the site form, both were badly vandalized with huge central craters. Most mounds in the United States are looted for their artifacts, such as prehistoric pottery, copper axes, shell jewelry and human remains. Early settlers dug into them, but this kind of vandalism still occurs today..." - See more at: http://blogs.usda.gov/2014/06/02/light-detection-and-ranging-helps-usda-pinpoint-and-protect-archaeological-mounds/#sthash.tVIkdQAD.dpuf

2 comments :

pwax said...

I am going to guess these archeologists have not seen enough mounds with hollows to realize the feature is too universal to be the result of vandalism.
Looks like to me: In the same LiDar picture the whole southern end of of the hill is a rectangular mound many times larger than the small ones indicated by arrows - YET - the large one also has a similar hollow.

pwax said...

I recommend clicking through the link and scrolling down. The small mound looks very familiar but made of dirt.