Detection of Archaeological Sites Using Remote Sensing in The Cilicia Pedias

Abstract

Ceyhan Plain is located at the southern of Turkey within the borders of Adana. This region as known as Cilicia Pedias in the ancient period. There are many lost and undiscovered ancient sites in Cilicia Pedias. At 3, 4 and 5 spectral bands of Landsat 7 image, it was determined that the archeological sites yield different spectral reflection values from other surface vegetation close to the modern settlement areas. Especially at near-infrared 4th band image, subsurface and surface ancient sites were determined. The unsupervised classification, Histogram Equalization and Principal Component Analysis methods were used with Image analysis 4, 3, 2 band combination. It was determined that the ancient sites may be distinguished from the modern settlement areas with Principal Component Analysis and linear method. The one of which the resolution is higher in the visual perception was used in 8th band imagery enhancement procedure. Also by using Spot and Aster images, the distribution and spatial features of sites were analyzed. In this paper, 42 units’ unknown ancient sites were determined except for the sites which had been known but got lost due to the destructing. © Author(s) 2021.