Aerial Archaeology Research Group

#AARG #LiDAR #AerialSurvey #Archaeology #AerialArchaeology #RemoteSensing

Huge thanks to our videographer Doug Rocks-MacQueen and AARG Webmaster Andrea Devlahović for all of their work in getting the presentations recorded and ready for release! And of course enormous thanks go to our speakers for their time and dedication to produce and deliver their presentations.

Did you miss AARG 2025 in Trondheim, or do you want to re-live the highlights? You're in luck! 🍀

We are delighted to announce a selection of presentations from AARG 2025 are now available on our YouTube Channel 🎉19 videos are available, with more coming soon!

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Well this looks interesting for one of my #AerialArchaeology #RemoteSensing #GIS mutuals!

Might be an interested @aerialarchaeology.bsky.social member out there?

Grants & Scholarships AARG offers funding for its members for projects that further the objectives of the Group and student scholarships for attendance at its annual meeting.

📢 ANNOUNCEMENT 📢
The first AARG Fund call of 2026 is now open!
🔹Deadline: 15th February 26
AARG Fund supports archaeological projects, fieldwork & research with strong aerial and remote sensing components 🛰️
aargonline.com/wp/grants-bu...

#archaeology #remotesensing #aerialarchaeology #aarg #LiDAR

Noted, thanks for your comment!

We're always on the look out for contributions to our bi-annual newsletter, so keep an eye out for the call in the coming months 📣
#aarg #LiDAR #aerialarchaeology #archaeology #aerialphotography

AARGnews AARGnews, our bi-annual newsletter, is a diverse, up-to-date and open forum for discussion and exchange of new (and old) ideas.

Find the AARGNews back catalogue here:
aargonline.com/wp/aarg-news/

An AI generated image of Santa relaxing by the fire reading a paper entitled AARGNews

As we emerge from the haze of festivities and feasting over Christmas and New Years, why not have a browse through our AARGNews back catalogue 📕 Link in the comments below.
All of our newsletters have been digitised and you can go right back to the 1st issue published in 1990! 📰
#aerialarchaeology

Ham Hill visitor centre on Iron Age fortress opens its doors - BBC News The £2.5m "iconic" centre will host community education sessions.

Just in time for #HillfortsWednesday

Iron Age fort £2.5m visitor centre opens to public

www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc....

The grass covered ramparts of an Iron Age hillfort on the horizon with tarmac road and two barbed wire fences in tne foreground

Twas the last #HillfortsWednesday before Christmas

When all through Dorset

Not a rampart was stirring

Not even the sinuously muscular multivallate eastern circuit of Eggardon Iron Age hillfort

(here captured from the road that skirts its NE side in Feb 2020)

Happy Holidays everyone !!

Scientists have uncovered evidence of Ireland's largest prehistoric hillfort settlement In a recent study published in Antiquity, Dr. Dirk Brandherm and his colleagues identified more than 600 suspected house platforms in the Brusselstown Ring hillfort, making it the largest nucleated se...

To end the year, here's some fabulous #ArchaeologyNews for #HillfortsWednesday - Ireland's largest hillfort!

Occupied from 1200-400 BC, with over 600 houses found so far, it's even larger than Maiden Castle!

🎆 See you all in 2026! 🎆

#archaeology #news

🏺 phys.org/news/2025-12...

An aerial view of a grass covered Iron Age hillfort, trees filling the interior, multiple paths exposing the white chalk geological natural beneath, the while being surrounded by hedge field boundaries

For the last #HillfortsWednesday of 2025, here's the trivallate Iron Age marvel of Badbury Rings #Dorset

✈️ 📷 summer 1947 @camdiglib.bsky.social (CC BY-NC 3.0) with uncontrolled access causing major erosion

Now better managed by the @nattrustarch.bsky.social, Badbury is a great place to explore 😍

Cover of Archaeologia Cambrensis journal showing the coastal excavation of Dinas Dinlle hillfort

Seriously looking forward to the new '#Hillforts special' edition of Archaeologia Cambrensis, out this month 🥳 with major articles on:

🌟Presidential Address by Gwilym Hughes

✨ Excavation reports for Caer Cadwgan, Dinas Dinlle, Porth y Rhaw, Pendinas & Tre'r Ceiri

Visit @cambriansarch.bsky.social

The aarg Christmas card depicts some carefully selected aerial images with a Christmas message alongside

As 2025 draws to a close, we would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas & a relaxing festive season! We hope to see you back in 2026 for more aerial archaeology happenings!

Best wishes, your AARG Committee & Trustees

#archaeology #aarg #aerialarchaeology #remotesensing #satellite #LiDAR

AARGnews AARGnews, our bi-annual newsletter, is a diverse, up-to-date and open forum for discussion and exchange of new (and old) ideas.

To find out more about what to expect at AARG meetings, head to our recent AARGnews for a summary: aargonline.com/wp/aarg-news/

You can see more about the venue here:

zcm.cz/en

The impressive Bohemia museum in Pilsen is in view infront of a clear blue sky

🚨Special Announcement! 🚨
AARG are delighted to announce that AARG 2026 is confirmed for 10th-12th September in…Pilsen, Czechia! 🎉

The meeting will take place at the impressive Museum of West Bohemia!

Further details and a call for papers will be communicated soon. For now, save the date! 📆

AARGnews AARGnews, our bi-annual newsletter, is a diverse, up-to-date and open forum for discussion and exchange of new (and old) ideas.

Read more in the newsletter on our website here:
aargonline.com/wp/aarg-news/

If you haven't done so already, you can become a member of AARG or grab your copy of AARGnews 71 from the AARG website - link in the comments below. The issue also includes coverage of the AARG conference in Trondheim, and articles which may be of interest to the aerial archaeology community.

© CC-BY K. Bondar et al. AARGnews 71 (2025)

© CC-BY K. Bondar et al. AARGnews 71 (2025)

AARGnews Spotlight: 📣Drone-based magnetometer survey📣
How do you speed up a geophysical survey of an archaeological site? By using an aerial platform!
In a study supported by an AARG Fund grant, Kseniia Bondar et al describe their use of a UAV mag to survey 2 Roman forts in Ukraine #geophysics

Orthophoto of a hill surrounded by fields. Locations of archaeological trenches and non-invasive surveys are annotated, showing extensive survey over the hillfort strongholds and associated settlement.

For #HillfortsWednesday the early #medieval hillfort and settlement of Grzybowo, Poland.
The first ruling dynasty of Poland, the Piasts, used hillfort strongholds to expand their influence across Poland and they were likely places of thriving trade.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

A series of rings parching out on a hilltop

It's true 💯 - we're all only here for #HillfortsWednesday 🥳🛖

The remarkable Pentre Camp near Llanfair Caereinion in north Powys is highly concentric with 3 lines of defence: perhaps for prestige or to mark it as a special locale..? 🤔

📷 Mobile phone during #RCAHMW aerial photography, May 2025

The grass covered ramparts of an oval shaped Iron Age hillfort from the air, bisected by a modern, tree-lined road

It's #HillfortsWednesday !!

Here's the Iron Age enclosure of Belsar’s Hill #Cambridgeshire, remodelled as a Norman fortress in the early 1070s, before being incorporated into a field system and overlain by a road

It's still impressive however, especially from the air 🤩

📷 Bill Blake CC BY-SA 4.0

The defensive ditch at Lordenshaw Hillfort on Garleigh Moor in the Simonside Hills, Northumberland. The fort is Iron Age in date. 📸 My own. #HillfortsWednesday #Lordenshaw

This Iron Age hill fort was constructed around 400BC and was used for around 300 years. Cissbury is a univallate fort, that is a hilltop enclosure with a single rampart accompanied by a ditch and a low counterscarp bank.

#HillfortsWednesday

Aerial view of the Figsbury Ring, Wiltshire. Neolithic and Iron Age site with sweeping views of surrounding countryside. ©National Trust Images/John Miller

It’s #HillfortsWednesday!

Did you know that there are more than 150 hillforts, hilltop and hillslope enclosures recorded on land cared for by the National Trust?

They're amazing archaeological sites, but also real havens for nature. 🧵

A walk through the stone defences of Mither Tap, Bennachie in Aberdeenshire for #HillfortsWednesday
I believe occupied in the early Middle Ages, don’t know how far it goes back? Whenever it was, I hope it was less windy than now.

An excerpt from a 6" Ordnance Survey map, published in 1881 and available via National Library for Scotland. It shows a long, narrow hill with hatched banks and ditches around much of the summit - they are marked 'Castle Ditch' in gothic font. The hill itself is labelled 'Eddisbury Hill', with 'Intrenchment' in gothic font. On the south east slopes the italicised label 'Merrick's-Hill or the Chamber' marks the site of the main royal lodge in the forest of Delamere, built in the 15th century and demolished in the 17th. It is variously known as 'Merrick's Hill', 'The Chamber' and 'The Chamber in the Forest'. For more on the hillfort, visit the Eddisbury entry in the online Atlas of Hillforts.

A LiDAR image of Eddisbury Hill, showing banks and ditches surviving prominently in an horseshoe from north east all the way around to south east, with a prominent ridge along the eastern side. Via National Library for Scotland.

Eddisbury Hill, #Cheshire, as surveyed by the OS in 1874 and as revealed by modern LiDAR. Early/middle Iron Age, though the ramparts were likely restored by Æthelflæd of Mercia in 914, as part of the long-running campaign against the Vikings. See map alt text for more. #HillfortsWednesday

Modern site of excavation through ramparts with reconstructed stone defences.

1951 excavation through ramparts with two archaeologists providing scale.

2025-1951 - comparison shots of Wheeler’s 1951 excavation on Site A, Stanwick, with how it looks today. 1 of 2
#HillfortsWednesday