Loading…
26
The time a 1970s dig map made me stop trusting everything online
Back in 2017 I was helping survey a Roman site near York and pulled up a modern satellite image that showed a clear ditch line. Turned out it was a tractor track from 1998. A retired curator pulled out this faded hand-drawn map from the 1970s excavation and the real ditch was about 40 feet off to the west. I've been cross-checking every new site against old field notes ever since. Anyone else had a fake feature on Google Earth send them in circles for weeks?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
murray.cora1mo ago
...and that's why I now treat satellite images like a dating app profile. Looks promising from a distance, but you know it's hiding a tractor track or a drainage ditch from 30 years ago. I once spent three weeks chasing a "Roman road" on Google Earth that turned out to be a really straight fence line from some farmer's 1980s land grab. The old hands at the site just laughed and handed me a coffee mug that said "trust the tape measure, not the pixels." Now I check the 1970s maps first, then maybe glance at the satellite stuff just to feel modern for a second.
1