New tools of archaeology, revealing lost cities and other ancient wonders – Liberation

LiDAR and artificial intelligence are just some of the technological advances making archaeologists' discoveries faster and easier.

Much of the material remains of our civilization have disappeared. Erased by time, buried under tons of dirt, dismantled by dynamite or eroded by the elements. In the face of this gradual disappearance of traces of our past, archaeologists have never given up.

In the past, their investigations relied mainly on shovels, brushes, and magnifying glasses — painstaking work, piece by piece, bone by bone, potsherd by potshard. This method continues to this day, but archaeologists now rely on an impressive array of modern techniques to uncover traces of civilizations that have disappeared.

Among these tools are artificial intelligence, DNA sequencing, satellite imagery, airborne technology called LIDAR (for “light detection and ranging”), drones equipped with infrared thermal cameras and even small robots capable of gliding down corridors. Burial. These remote sensing technologies, along with artificial intelligence and Machine learningsignificantly increases the chances that sites targeted by archaeologists will uncover important artifacts without unnecessary effort.

“There is a clear sense of urgency about mapping the sites, as coastal erosion, fires and tsunamis – all large-scale weather phenomena – are putting archaeological sites at risk.” explains Sarah Parcak, an American archaeologist