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I heard a podcast about the new laser mapping at Angkor Wat and it made me miss digging by hand.
The host said the tech found over 1,000 hidden structures in a week, a job that would have taken my old professor a lifetime, and it got me wondering if we're losing the feel of the dirt under our nails.
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park.robin6mo ago
Your professor would have found different things though. A laser sees foundations and walls, but it misses the small stuff. It doesn't find the broken pottery piece or the lost coin that tells a human story. The tech gives us the map, but people still have to dig to read the pages.
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rowanellis6mo ago
Exactly, tech can't replace the human touch.
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blair2486mo ago
But what about the stuff that isn't a wall or a coin? Like, does the laser pick up on subtle changes in soil color or texture that a person on their knees would notice? Those shifts can show where a post hole was or an ancient path, things that don't have hard edges.
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