"Remote Sensing - Is it a Road or a Fort" Topic

A wall or a road? A remote sensing-based investigation of fortifications on Rome's eastern frontier
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2023

One of their summary points "Finally, the discovery of such a large number of previously undocumented ancient forts in this well-studied region of the Near East is a testament to the power of remote-sensing technologies as transformative tools in contemporary archaeological research"

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One of the remote sensing pictures
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Nice to see remote sensing used this way. I first some value in using Google Earth when doing research into the fortifications around Kars (Crimea War battles).

Note – doing a search for remote sensing and battlefields or similar topics can give you some new insights as more and more technology is used in pursuit of history

My first thought when I read "remote sensing" lead me to the erroneous conclusion this had to do with clairvoyance-related archeology. A quick read of the link disabused me of my wrong assumption. Thank you.

And elsewhere. There's some very interesting stuff in North Africa and the 'Stans, though the whole thing is a lot less helpful where there's more vegetation.

Worth remembering the context on the analysis, though. Right now, roads, trade and soft power are very much the "in" thing among the History and Archeology crowd. Come back in a generation or two and what they now assess as caravanserais along a road might become forts and defense in depth. And of course both might have been true of the same structures over time.

You'd like analysis to be purely about the data. But such is not always the case.

A couple of articles on LIDAR use in Rainforest discovering earthworks and other structures

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Oh, yes. But you have to spend money to get LIDAR, and you can't backdate it. As noted, we've got satellite imagery 50+ years old and free--as soon as it's declassified.

I'm with you Gray Bear. I thought it was ESP.

"Right now, roads, trade and soft power are very much the "in" thing among the History and Archeology crowd. Come back in a generation or two and what they now assess as caravanserais along a road might become forts and defense in depth. And of course both might have been true of the same structures over time".

I'd suggest that in the period described the two were synonymous, any sort of caravanserais route would need defended locations, which would in practice form a military boundary.

Weren't Caravanserais fortified ?

[I'd suggest that in the period described the two were synonymous, any sort of caravanserais route would need defended locations, which would in practice form a military boundary.]
[Weren't Caravanserais fortified ?]

Well, they were usually a square or rectangle with a high wall and a sturdy gate. So fort-like. The key difference is military presence/garrison. A caravan that rocked up to a Roman fort would probably not be allowed to come inside for the night, but might be allowed to camp close to the walls and hope that bandits would be deterred by the proximity of the garrison. A caravanserai would have no military, but is expressly designed to allow travellers to spend the night inside; any decent caravan would have some self defence, and combined with the walls, is not going to be an easy target for bandits.

The experts on the region, such as Millar and Isaac, have been fairly sceptical that the Roman army was that interested in policing per se. That may be what makes the Palmyrenes a bit different, as there is clear evidence that they took caravan security very seriously and honoured leaders who invested effort in that cause.

Not remote viewing then?

DBS303, What was to stop the bandits hiding in an unoccupied fortified location until the caravan was on top of it and then springing the ambush. This doesn't sound like a real solution, more something written up by Prof B because Prof A has published the alternative.