Spy pics reveal ancient settlements
Submitted by coldrum on Monday, 07 August 2006 Page Views: 6577
DiscoveriesCountry: Syria Australian researchers studying declassified spy satellite images have found widespread remains of ancient human settlements dating back 130,000 years in Syria.The photographs were taken by United States military surveillance satellites operating under the CIA and defence-led Corona program in the late 1960s.
The team of researchers travelled to the Euphrates River Valley in April and June and searched sites they had painstakingly identified using the images, which were only declassified in the late 1990s.
Group leader Mandy Mottram, a PhD student at the Australian National University's School of Archaeology and Anthropology, said the evidence of human life found in the area included a hilltop Byzantine basilica, a 24 hectare fortified town dating to the Early Bronze Age, Early Islamic pottery factories and a hilltop complex of megalithic tombs.
Ms Mottram said the researchers' trained eyes could spot small changes in the landscape, such as a different soil colour, that could indicate a former human settlement.
The images are particularly valuable because they show the landscape prior to its present rapid agricultural development.
"It's the guide for us to go out and have a look in that specific area," she said.
"It's been actually really brilliantly helpful for us. We've had a really, really high strike rate, I would say about 95 per cent."
Some of the artefacts found could dramatically change the way historians think of the area's early inhabitants, Ms Mottram said.
More: News.com.au
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