Drones at Catalhoyuk: A New Survey for Landscape Interpretation

Despite many years of archaeological excavations at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, the standing explanation for economic, social, and ritual activities of the inhabitants is based solely upon a wide range of evidence originating from deposits found in different parts of the densely-occupied settlement. The immediate environs of the settlement have never been systematically studied, creating a significant void in a comprehensive understanding of the existence of local community in its different forms, and leaving the interpretation of the settlement's original deposits largely one-sided and unbalanced. These research questions require new methods and very extensive surveys and landscape analyses by non-invasive technologies. For these reasons, in 2015, a remote sensing project involving the use of drones was initiated. The plan was to map in 2D and 3D the East and West mounds and to generate high resolution models and georeferenced orthophotos of the site. The device was the UAV DJI S900 hexacopter, equipped with a Panasonic GH4 digital camera. This chapter aims at presenting the results of the first drone survey at Çatalhöyük that produced over 3000 digital photos. This allowed the creation of a very detailed DTM (digital terrain model) and DSM (digital surface model). The 3D visualization of the East mound clearly shows the existence of a third small mound, very likely related to the latest phase of the site's occupation. On the West Mound, on the other hand, the archaeological feature-tracking made by digital filtering and image processing displays several crop marks and foundation walls related to the Early Chalcolithic village. The combined use of drones with RTK (real time kinematic) GPS (by using targets on the ground) allowed for the creation of a very accurate model of the entire site in terms of resolution and geolocation. This discussion also attempts to integrate the received results with the settlement layout and spatial organization, as revealed by the long-term excavations, as well as geophysical prospection, and provides the first integrated picture of the site and its immediate environs.