Photo Reading

Before interpreting a specific archaeological site, you should try to collect as many photographs, as you can get. If you are lucky, you will find several pieces form different years and seasons. Probably none of them will show your site as a whole, but every photograph can give you new information, which can be put together like pieces of a puzzle. The result will be the archaeological landscape of your site - probably still leaving some "holes", depending on the topography, geology, soils, crops etc...

Anyway, try to avoid looking just at a single photograph, because there is a greater possibility of misinterpretation. Very often, flaws during the photographic development process have the appearance of archaeological pits. These errors can be filtered away easily by examining at least a second photograph. Use magnifying glasses and, if you have vertical stereopairs or overlapping consecutive oblique photographs, examine them under a stereoscope.  

Archaeological interpretation of aerial photographs is by far not easy. It takes a lot of experience to become a good interpreter. The main problem is, to distinguish archaeological traces from others. Among these are geological marks, buried modern garbage disposals, bomb craters, modern agricultural traces, drains or rooted out trees, just to mention a few.