Bronze age burial mounds, Roman roads and deserted medieval villages are among almost 13,000 previously-unknown ancient sites and monuments that have been discovered by members of the public in recent months, it will be announced this week., a “citizen science project” which has harnessed the power of hobbyists to scour 512 sq km of Earth Observation data, including high-resolution satellite and lidar – laser technology – imagery.
Maiya Pina-Dacier, a senior archaeologist with DigVentures, said: “We’ve now got the preliminary results in and they’re really impressive. Our citizen scientists – or ‘Pastronauts’ as we call them – identified 12,802 ancient sites and monuments that were previously unknown.” “I’m really excited by the scale of the features that have been found … We can go out now into the field, with many of the participants who have helped us find these sites … field-check them and potentially also excavate them. It’s the prehistoric landscape that’s emerging from beneath the modern field system.”
He added: “To meet its net zero goals, the UK needs to transform at least 700 sq km of land a year. Citizen science programmes like this can directly support these efforts by helping to map and increase our understanding of the landscapes in question before work begins.