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Ngā Tohuwhenua Mai Te Rangi: A New Zealand Archeology in Aerial Photographs

Future of the aerial photographic record

Future of the aerial photographic record

We must continue to conduct archaeological surveys, and aerial photographs, taken for the purpose of recording historic sites, will play an important role. Unfortunately, the level of routine aerial photographic survey has been very low in this country since about 1987, mainly because of 'user-pays' and a competitive attitude between agencies as to the commercial potential of their film materials. 2 No doubt economic benefits are gained from awareness of the true cost of those services, but in this process of reform the public good has been lost sight of—particularly the need for a comprehensive record of the nature and speed of change in the New Zealand landscape. An individual forestry company will have records of its forests; it may destroy the records once they are no longer current. What will happen when, in 25 years time, someone wishes to examine the effect of wide-scale afforestation on archaeological sites? Or, of more admitted economic importance, if a review is needed of the flood-potential of a catchment after the forest is felled? Who is to speak for it, and to be heard, if not archaeologists, working to develop community support for protection and the values of the historical landscape? There seems to be little consideration of the uses of aerial photographs for research such as this.

New Zealand's mapping programme has always been a major sponsor of aerial photographic survey. The metric topographic map series coverage is near-complete, and there is no other potential client willing to pay the considerable cost of sustained aerial photograph coverage. Fortunately for the historical record, the existing stock of aerial photographs subject to Crown copyright, which dates back to the 1930s, is well cared for. 3

Internationally, the importance and sheer extent of aerial photography in recent years may be illustrated by activities in the United Kingdom in the course of their dry summer of 1989. In 610 hours of flying time, 5,000 page 268 to 7,000 groups of otherwise buried features (many previously unknown) were recorded on some 25,000 individual photographs. 4 The modest scale of this book is reflected in the total work done for it: approximately 40 hours of flying recording 120 sites or groups of sites in about 1,500 single images. The volume of recording in the United Kingdom has raised several problems in following up the potential information about the past that it contains.

First, aerial photography has discovered so much raw data that we could now consider limiting our capacity to record. Any new recording should be balanced with a renewed effort in analysis and interpretation of the existing record. This point is probably less applicable to New Zealand where, at least in archaeology, we do not have a strong tradition of aerial photography, and much could still be gained by routine flying to fill out the record. Nevertheless, we could do a lot more to analyse the existing aerial photographic record.

Second, aerial photography is not simply a technique to be used as an aid to conventional archaeology, for example, in the identification of new sites for excavation. Rather, aerial photography demands a new approach to archaeological mapping and interpretation that must treat the data with its own distinctive techniques, if maximum advantage in terms of the writing of a full history is to be gained. The analytical techniques that may in future be applied to aerial photography include: systematic mapping of archaeological features, taking corrected measurements off the photographs; detailed studies of settlement pattern using GIS (geographical information systems); more sophisticated analysis of the manner in which sites lie one on top of the other, indicating their relative ages; and prediction of the existence of sites as yet unknown, applying known site-distribution patterns to new territory or landscapes that are buried under alluvium or volcanic ash.

Third, the United Kingdom may be going through a phase in which agricultural practice is exposing sites to view for a brief cycle of seasons, perhaps for the first time, and then shortly afterwards destroying the record in such a way that it will never be possible to recover the basic information again in the future. New Zealand does not have the same density of historic sites as the United Kingdom, yet there are many aspects of the destruction caused by rural development that are similar. In our forestry development in the 1970s, the initial burn-off revealed stunningly fresh images of sites that soon disappeared under a cover of shrubs. We too may be in a period that has unique opportunities to capture images of the past.

In the wider perspectives of archaeology, aerial photography is therefore one of a range of techniques applied to frustratingly evanescent and fragmented, but nonetheless highly valued, samples of the past. However, it is not enough simply to regard aerial photography as a method and to forget its uses. Because of the political nature of much historical writing, we have to remain aware of how it is used. Aerial photography, so often associated with remote and bloodless views of military destruction, is open to the charge that it offers inhumane lessons about the past. Māori fortifications exhibit such fine pattern in aerial view that many of my regional chapters have ended with reminders of the New Zealand wars, but I have tried to balance those with the texture of everyday life, settlement pattern and tradition. Taking the wider view, Peter Fowler also concluded with a warning note:

. . . sooner rather than later, archaeological air photography ... by ascending from a brilliant technique to a discipline which asks and answers questions by its own terms of reference, will stand or fall by its ability to contribute to a fuller understanding of how and why we and our surroundings have come to pass. That wonderful ken from our flying machines has to be, like documents and monuments, transmuted into history. 5