Satellite Remote Sensing of Archaeological Vegetation Signatures in Coastal West Africa

This article discusses how archaeological sites in Sierra Leone, and by extension much of West Africa, can be identified through vegetation patterns (vegetation signatures) detectable in very high-resolution (VHR) multispectral satellite imagery. Settlement sites typically have a differing pattern of vegetation from the surrounding landscape, including concentrations of very large trees with sociocultural and historical significance: cotton (Ceiba pentandra) and baobab (Adansonia digitata). These features are conspicuous elements of the landscape both from the ground and in aerial imagery. Two complementary methods of using VHR multispectral satellite imagery are discussed in this paper: visual interpretation and semi-automated subpixel classification. These techniques are aiding ongoing archaeological survey of the Sierra Leone River Estuary. The impact of recently renewed industrial activity at a site of probable archaeological significance is also assessed through visually interpreted VHR satellite imagery.     

Identifying sites at risk from illicit metal detecting: from CRAVED to HOPPER

Archaeological sites are at risk from acquisitive crime: this paper focuses in particular on illicit metal detecting. The effects of theft in this context are not merely financial, but have devastating impact on our knowledge and understanding of the site. Even where items are later recovered, we lose the vital clues about the precise context of an object. We therefore need to reduce the risk of theft occurring in the first place.

This paper draws on case studies from England and presents a new methodology to assess which archaeological sites may be at risk from illicit metal detecting: ‘HOPPER’ identifies the characteristics of sites likely to be targeted by offenders looking for antiquities. In brief: History (a history of finds at the site); Open (the site has physical public access, and/or is documented in the public domain); Protection (protected status can act as a beacon for offenders); Publicity (site is known about or receiving new attention); Evasion (there are known ways to escape apprehension); and Repeat victimisation (The site has been a target before). The impact of HOPPER will be its use in the field to develop a pragmatic risk assessment applicable both in a local and international context.     

Reviews

Australian

Scott Bennett, Aborigines and Political Power. Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1989, pp.167. $ 17.95 (paper)

Jim Downing, Country of My Spirit. Darwin, North Australian Research Unit, Australia National University, 1988, pp.181. $ 12.50 (paper)

Hugh V. Emy and Owen E. Hughes, Australian Politics: Realities in Conflict, Melbourne, Macmil‐lan, 1988, pp. 554. $29.95 (paper)

Paul Finn, Law and Government in Colonial Australia, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 216. $40.00 (cloth)

Ross Fitzgerald and Harold Thornton, Labor in Queensland From the 1880s to 1988. St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1989, pp.422. $34.95 (paper)

Brian Galligan (ed.), Australian Federalism, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1989 pp. 228. $15.95 (paper)

Brian Galligan (ed.) Comparative State Policies, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1988, pp.303. $21.25 (paper)

Helen Gardner (ed.). The Politics of Health. Melbourne, Churchill Livingston, 1989, pp. 492. $29.50 (paper)

Brian W. Head and Allan Patience (eds), From Fraser to Hawke: Australian Public Policy in the 1980s, Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, pp.525. $19.95 (paper)

Dean Jaensch (ed.), The Flinders History of South Australia — Political History, Adelaide, Wakefield Press, 1986, pp.533. $40.00 (paper)

Dean Jaensch, Power Politics: Australia's Party System, 2nd edn, Sydney, Allen & Unwin Australia, 1989, pp.226. $18.95 (paper)

Jonathan Kelley and Clive Bean (eds), Australian Attitudes: Social and Political Analyses from the National Social Science Survey, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1988, pp.206. $ 15.95 (paper)

D.A. Kemp, Foundations for Australian Political Analysis: Politics and Authority, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1988, pp.488. $29.95 (paper)

Clem Lloyd: Either Drought or Plenty: Water Development and Management in New South Wales, Sydney, Kangaroo Press, 1988, pp.311. $37.50 (cloth)

Ian McAllister and John Warhurst (eds), Australia Votes: The 1987 Federal Election, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1988, pp.284. $19.95 (paper)

G.S. Reid and Martyn Forrest, Australia's Commonwealth Parliament 1901–1988: Ten Perspectives, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1989, pp.572. $29.95 (cloth)

Comparative and international

Mike Bowker and Phil Williams, Superpower De‐tented Reappraisal, London, Sage, 1988, pp. 277. £10.95 (paper)

Charles Chatfield and Peter van den Dungden (eds), Peace Movements and Political Cultures, Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1988, pp.317. US$39.95 (cloth)

Ronald W. Clark, Lenin. The Man Behind the Mask. London, Faber & Faber, 1988, pp.564. £17.95 (cloth)

David Lane (ed.), Elites and Political Power in the USSR, Aldershot, Edward Elgar, 1988, pp.299. £28.50 (cloth).

Alistair Cole and Peter Campbell, French Electoral Systems and Elections since 1789, 3rd edn, Alder‐shot, Gower, 1989, pp.202. £25.00 (cloth)

Conlan, Timothy, New Federalism: Intergovernmental Reform from Nixon to Reagan, Washington, D.C., Brookings, 1988. pp.247. US$15.95 (paper)

Russell J. Dalton, Citizen Politics in Western Democracies. Chatham, N.J., Chatham House, pp. 270. US$14.95 (paper)

E. Etzioni‐Halevy, National Broadcasting Under Seige: A comparative Study of Australia, Britain, Israel and West Germany, Hampshire, Macmillan. 1987, pp. 212. $82.95 (cloth)

Roger Hilsman, The Politics of Policy Making in Defense and Foreign Affairs: Conceptual Models and Bureaucratic Politics, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice‐Hall, 1987, pp.326. $42.50 (paper)

Scott Newton and Dilwyn Porter, Modernization Frustrated: The Politics of Industrial Decline in Britain since 1900, London, Unwin Hyman, 1988. pp. 224. $7.95 (paper)

J. Mathews, Tools of Change: New Technology and the Democratisation of Work, Sydney, Pluto Press, 1989. pp.234. $14.95 (paper)

Angelo Panebianco, Political Parties: Organization and Power, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp.318. $39.50 (paper)

Robert Springborg, Mubarak's Egypt: Fragmentation of the Political Order, Boulder & London, Westview Press, 1989, pp.307. $39.95 (cloth)

Edward A. Tiryakian and Ronald Rogowski (eds), New Nationalism of the Developed West, Boston, Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp.394. $69.00 (cloth)

Political theory and methodology

J. Budziszewski, The Nearest Coast of Darkness: A Vindication of the Politics of Virtues. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1988, pp.201. US$24.95 (cloth)

Peter Grabosky and Paul Wilson: Journalism and Justice: How Crime is Reported Sydney, Pluto Press, 1989, pp.l49.$14.95(paper)

George Grant, English‐Speaking Justice. Notre Dame, Notre Dame University Press, 1985 (1974), pp.104. US$8.95 (paper)

J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. One, Reason and the Rationalization of Society, trans, by T. McCarthy, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987, pp.465. $45.40 (paper)

J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. Two, The Critique of Functionalist Reason, trans, by T. McCarthy, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987, pp.447. $69.95 (cloth)

J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans, by F. Lawrence, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987, pp.430. $65.00 (cloth).

Les Johnston, Marxism, Class Analysis and Socialist Pluralism, London, Allen & Unwin, 1986, pp. 155. $19.95 (paper)

Bernard Daucnhaucr, The Politics of Hope, London, Routledge, 1986, pp.200. $76.95 (cloth)

Bill Jordan, The Common Good: Citizenship, Morality and Self‐interest, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1989, pp. 190. $29.95 (paper)

Ciaran O'Maolain, The Radical Right: A World Directory, Harlow, Longman, 1987, pp.500. £45.00 (cloth)