Aerial Archaeology in Ireland - The Heritage Council

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ago in England, may have meant that there was no catalyst for such collaboration, although individual efforts have made very
important contributions, as in the Cork Survey.
This is not to say that there is no discussion or interaction — especially at the cutting edge of aerial archaeology in Ireland. But
most respondents commented on the lack of any formal or semi-formal public sharing of views and experiences rather than
simply informal private contact, which clearly does occur in clusters of people with similar thematic or geographical interests.
This lack of broader awareness of some of the developments and issues for aerial archaeology in Ireland is arguably apparent
in some of the patterns of literature citation. There also appears to be rather little awareness (or membership) of bodies such as
the Aerial Archaeology Research Group (AARG), which provides a forum for discussing issues and approaches to the technique.
AARG’s useful website 24 provides many useful references to literature and links to other relevant internet sites. It describes their
role as follows:
’The Aerial Archaeology Research Group (AARG) provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and
information for all those actively involved in aerial photography, photo interpretation, field archaeology
and landscape history. This also includes the use of aerial photography in defining preservation policies
for archaeological sites and landscapes.
The Aerial Archaeology Research Group (AARG) began life in 1981 as a small seminar called to discuss
ideas raised by Paul Ashbee (then of the University of East Anglia) and David Wilson (of CUCAP).
The critical issue was to examine ways of obtaining archaeological information from existing aerial
photographs — problems that now tend to fall within “post-reconnaissance” work. Meetings of that group
then continued to be held at least once a year — and those were exciting times.
Computer rectification had become available and allowed, for the first time, rapid mapping of complex
features and large areas. This was used by a small number of research students to study different areas of
Britain, and many of the early AARG meetings were spent discussing ways of illustrating different kinds
of features (see Aerial Archaeology 11) and of methods of classification of the mapped features and their
results. The latter is a never-ending quest and recurs at intervals and as new areas (each of which has
its own specific problems) are studied or new methods applied (see, for example, papers by Duncan and
Redfern in AARGnews 14).
More recently, the annual AARG meetings have become slightly more formal presentations of finished,
or ongoing, projects, although our present chairman intends to reintroduce some more open discussion.
Presentations have included some of the results from the National Mapping Programme for England
(RCHME), and integration of different survey methods (such as comparing results from AP interpretation
with geophysics, or adding field-walked data to AP-derived maps). Use of satellite images has been
pursued as the special interest of one member but, with the increasing resolution now publicly available,
this media is becoming a useful source of archaeological information (see Fowler in AARGnews 9-15,
Comfort in AARGnews 14).
As AARG enlarged in size, so it attracted aerial photographers as members and topics have arisen which
pursue their interests. The merits of different types of hardware (cameras, films, filters, etc) have been
discussed (see Crawshaw AARGnews 8-10; Jones in AARGnews 16) and our meetings tend to include
an informal session at which members can show a selection of their latest photographs. Current interest,
raised as an important post-reconnaissance question, asks whether the traditional archaeological oblique
photographs provide reliable data on which to base archaeological survey. This continues to form part of
discussions at the annual conferences…
24 http://aarg.univie.ac.at/