WHAT IS A HISTORIC LANDSCAPE?
To formulate the subject of our research is only seemingly simple, since the landscape as we know it today has essentially become so because the natural environment has been continuously influenced by human activities from the earliest times. And these influences, whether they are traces of agriculture, settlements, cemeteries, roads, mines, etc., form interconnected and complex networks.
HOW TO RESEARCH IT?
Research on specific (even historical) layers of the landscape, like traditional archaeological excavation, is essentially based on the identification, processing and organization of visual information. However, it is naturally fraught with limitations because of the methods of observation. Whether we have a good aerial photograph, satellite image, old map, etc., the only landscape that can really become a 'historic landscape' is the one that we succeed in noticing, since what we cannot see or notice cannot be recorded, measured or discussed, therefore, it is basically non-existent. Today, however, LiDAR technology represents a real turning point in the exploration of the layers of the landscape.
WHAT IS LIDAR?
The term LiDAR itself is quite a mouthful, short for Light Detection and Ranging, a technique that uses millions of laser pulses typically emitted by low-altitude flying devices mounted on drones, helicopters or airplanes. It's actually a specialized data collection, or scanning if you prefer. Thanks to the fact that the device emits an incredibly high number of signals per second, even in the densest forest, enough laser beams can actually reach the ground to obtain information about the original terrain surface, even in areas with lush vegetation. Just think of the sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees in a dense forest – this is how one should imagine a laser scanning the ground.
CAN WE SEE UNDER THE GROUND WITH IT?
Although the laser does not penetrate the ground, it can use special processing techniques to make visible to us the area in which the remains of the historical landscape we are researching can still be found and identified. Although the vegetation itself is surveyed during the operation, we can digitally remove the ‘distracting’ details and create an original, ‘stripped down’ topographic map of the area, be it the Tihany Peninsula or the High Bakony Hills.