Whilst most of Wendy’s and my time is spent considering prehistory, i.e. archaeology from before the Roman invasion, the LiDAR data is showing us monuments and sites from far more recent periods, and even earthworks created within living memory. I think it’s a really interesting question as to when “archaeology” stops and when the “modern” […]
The Grand Plan
Hi all, sorry for the slight radio silence! I’ve just been off for a couple of weeks of leave. Predictably, there’s always archaeology involved… firstly I went trotting around the Trotternish Ridge in Skye… … before sneaking off to roam around Rome. Back home again now, enjoying some beautiful sunny days here in Chinnor, the […]
The problem with hillforts… Part 1
As you are hopefully aware, the real focus of the Beacons of the Past project is the Iron Age archaeology of the Chilterns. Whilst the LiDAR is revealing archaeology from all periods, from the Neolithic to the 20th Century, the Iron Age hillforts and their landscapes are our main concern when it comes to the […]
A temporary bench mark
A bit of fun for this post… as you may have heard, the project has had a small excavation going on, out at Burnham Beeches, in South Bucks. We have been investigating a large, long, linear earthwork, which intersects with the hillfort, to see if we can work out what it was constructed for, and […]
Getting beneath the surface
The LiDAR Portal continues to run well, and our user numbers have now gone over 600! Welcome to all our new users, and thank you to everyone coming back to help. We’ve continued to roll out new features, including the ability now to get a grid reference read out, to make it easier for you […]
3 weeks in…
An update on progress, as we have just passed the three week mark with the portal! Thanks everyone for all the support and help so far. We are up to around 450 unique users now, and nearly 1000 sites have been transcribed into the Citizen Record Database, so excellent work! The portal has slowly been […]
Welcome!
Hello and welcome to the Chilterns AONB’s “Beacons of the Past” Citizen Science LiDAR Portal! This website makes available the results of (at the time of writing) the largest bespoke LiDAR survey yet flown for archaeology in the UK. This is a type of remote sensing carried out using a plane-mounted sensor sending out laser […]