Archaeologists used drone technology to map a 3,000-year-old fortress in Georgia, discovering it is 40 times larger than previously estimated. The study, published in the journal , highlights the significant find of Dmanisis Gora, a Bronze Age “mega-fortress” in the Caucasus mountains.
When archaeologists in Georgia conducted test excavations at a 3,000-year-old fortress, they worked in tall summer grass. When they returned in the fall, however, they discovered that the flora had previously concealed something shocking.
The Caucasus is a geographical region encompassing parts of Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, and an ancient crossroads of many different cultures, including local populations. Large fortress settlements began to develop in the Southern Caucasus region between 1500 and 500 BCE, according to the study.
“That was what sparked the idea of using a drone to assess the site from the air,” Erb-Satullo said. The researchers used a drone to take almost 11,000 pictures of the site, which they then pieced together to create digital elevation models and orthophotos: aerial photographs corrected to account for elements such as the angle from which the photo was taken.
Erb-Satullo and his colleagues then compared the orthophotos to Cold War-era spy satellite imagery declassified in 2013 to analyze how the site had evolved in the last five decades, highlighting the encroachment of modern agriculture.
DRONE FORTRESS CAUCASUS BRONZE AGE ARCHAEOLOGY
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