September 27, 2024
by Dr. Daniel Plekhov
The 2024 recipient of the Julie Herzig Desnick Endowment For Archaeological Field Surveys, Dr. Daniel Plekhov, shares an update from the field.
With the generous funds from the Julie Herzig Desnick Endowment For Archaeological Field Surveys, my team and I were able to travel to southern Montenegro and initiate the first season of field survey within the municipality of Ulcinj. Specifically, we were able to purchase a Velodyne Puck lidar sensor to test its effectiveness in detecting and mapping archaeological structures hidden beneath dense vegetation. We tested this device at the Medieval site of Shas, one of the principal archaeological sites in the region. The site is famous for the remains of its numerous churches, most of which are poorly preserved and largely obscured by dense and thorny shrubs. Our survey of the site, combining the Puck lidar sensor with drone photography, has allowed us to create the first site map of the settlement’s above-ground structures, enhancing our understanding of the site and laying the foundation for future work. Methodologically, we also collected useful data regarding the Puck’s efficacy in these environments, finding that though the Puck performed well in the field, the density of the vegetation and the low resolution of the device provided little advantage over other approaches. Nevertheless, we collected plentiful lidar data that we are working with to develop effective workflows for post-processing, which we anticipate being of use for others working with lidar data in dense shrubland environments. We will be presenting the results of our research at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the AIA and are in the process of writing up our results for publication.
