New light on an ancient landscape: lidar survey in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site

Abstract

Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging), which has recently come into use for airborne environmental monitoring, is now beginning to find success in archaeological survey. Liaison between the Environment Agency and English Heritage has led to a lidar survey of the Stonehenge landscape, where new sites have been discovered, known ones extended and its potential as an important new tool for the management of archaeological landscapes is discussed for the first time. Lidar has the potential to radically transform our future understanding and management of the historic environment. The article by Devereux et al. (pages 648-660 of this volume) shows the technique applied to woodland.