HERE COME THE DRONES
When Mike Searcy is in the field, he likes to get a bird’s-eye picture of his study area.“That means I’m teetering on top of a ladder or climbing up on some truck, trying to get a good angle,” says the Brigham Young University archaeologist. Sometimes it’s meant taking an expensive, and nausea-inducing ride in a small plane. Things can get difficult, he says. These days, however, Searcy has an easier option: He can, so to speak, call in a drone strike. In minutes, the flying, instrument-laden robot can skim across large archaeological sites, collecting high-resolution images that once would have been beyond the reach of most meagerly-funded archaeologists. This digital data can then be used to create detailed three-dimensional maps.“It still blows me away. I’m incredibly impressed with what a drone can help you do quickly and pretty cheaply,” says Searcy, who has used drones to document sites in the Southwestern United States and Norhern Mexico.
26
fall • 2015
