Compared to civilian multispectral and hyperspectral satellite imagery (e.g. Landsat, Aster, SPOT, Hyperion), CORONA's primary advantage is in spatial resolution. As is clear from Figure 1, the spatial resolution of civilian satellites, generally between 10–30m, is far too coarse to reveal most archaeological features with clarity. Certainly, however, multispectral imagery offers many analytical opportunities that a simple black-and-white photographic CORONA image does not. Numerous recent studies have made use of multispectral images to classify archaeological sites in terms of reflectance and to recognise other ancient cultural features, with varying degrees of success (e.g. Fowler 2002; Altaweel 2005; Alexakis et al. 2009; Pryce and Abrams 2010; Lasaponara and Masini 2011). In a particularly good example from northern Mesopotamia, Menze and Ur (2012) use a time series of Aster and Landsat images to characterise the reflectance of areas likely associated with ancient settlement. As clusters of anthropogenically altered soils and dense surface artefacts, sites may theoretically have similar reflectance characteristics, and their study was among the first to automate the identification of such properties successfully, something that could not be achieved with CORONA alone. Nonetheless, in Menze and Ur's study area in the Jazireh region of eastern Syria, the large majority of the features discovered by analysis of multispectral images are also visible on CORONA. Ur's (2002; 2010) work in several surveys in the region shows that no sites could be identified through field walking that did not produce a distinct signature on CORONA. Whether an analysis like Menze and Ur's would work equally well in areas where sites and features are less readily apparent on CORONA remains an open question. In any case, the high resolution of CORONA imagery combined with its age and its stereo capabilities undoubtedly make it a powerful tool in archaeology—one that is complementary and often superior to multispectral satellite imagery for direct detection of sites and features.
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