Beneath the sand—remote sensing, archaeology, aggregates and sustainability: a case study from Heslerton, the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire, UK

The Vale of Pickering, in Yorkshire has been the setting for one of the largest archaeological research projects in Europe for more than 30 years. The accrued data includes over 1000 ha of fluxgate gradiometer measurements that can be interpreted with reference to 200 ha of subsurface mapping, 25 years of aerial photographic survey, two large-area multispectral and vertical photographic surveys, a Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) survey and area excavations in excess of 22 ha. Crucially, this multifaceted approach has revealed flaws in our appreciation of the archaeological landscape based on isolated ‘sites’. This paper summarizes aspects of the approaches and results using a variety of remote sensing techniques to characterize the nature and extent of the archaeological resource in an aggregate rich environment. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.