Скачать или смотреть Google Earth's Hidden Histories: The Crop Marks of Long Wittenham, Oxfordshire

At face value, the rolling landscapes of rural England may appear to be spaces of enduring, idyllic countryside. Yet archaeologists and anthropologists are often keen to point out they are by no means static entities. They have past lives that are entangled with different cultures, activities, social systems and political organisations that all unfolded in unique ways over diverse timescales.

Using Google Earth satellite imagery and historic aerial photographs, this video showcases a series of mysterious archaeological features in the Thames Valley in Oxfordshire, exhibiting how the evidence of past livelihoods is in the most unlikely of places. Upon taking to the skies, we are able to catch a glimpse of this evidence as the etchings of trackways, paddocks and houses are revealed in a series of complex crop marks.

The analysis of such crop marks is notoriously difficult. They often display multiple phases of occupation that are imprinted on top of each other in complex patterns. A glimmer of light is shed on the marks depicted in this video thanks to a series of excavations undertaken in 1969 demonstrate. Although brief, the excavations indicate both Roman and Iron Age settlements resided here.

Whilst aerial archaeology helps to highlight the caution that should be exercised when interpreting the past, it also provides an intriguing insight into the temporal nature of our landscapes, reminding us of the diversity of human lifeways both past and how these unfold in localised and dynamic ways through time.

References
Gary, M., 1977. Northfield Farm, Long Wittenham. Oxoniensia 42, 1-31