9781422275146

ARCHAEOLOGY Archaeologists still need to dig to uncover hidden treasures, but they also now use drones to make discoveries that are not evident to the human eye. Here are some examples of how drones are being used: • In Ironwood Forest National Monument in Arizona, archaeologists flew a GoPro camera mounted on a drone over the rocky desert in an effort to better understand the ancient Hohokam Native American culture. Later, the archaeologists used software to produce a 3-D virtual model of the Hohokam village. The 3-D model is being used by archaeologists to better understand the Hohokam culture and as a teaching tool in a local museum. • In Ireland, the combination of a drought and the quick thinking of Anthony Murphy, a local author and photographer, resulted in the discovery of the spot where a 5,000-year-old henge once stood at the Brú na Bóinne archaeological landscape, a UNESCO Heritage Site about 30 miles north of Dublin. (A henge is a prehistoric monument consisting of a circle of upright stones or wood that was used for religious ceremonies and other purposes. Stonehenge in the United Kingdom is the most famous example of a henge.) Murphy launched a camera-enabled drone and discovered discolorations in the soil that spread about 492 feet (150 meters) wide in a perfectly circular pattern. In a New York Times story about the discovery, Michael MacDonagh, Chief Archaeologist for Ireland’s National Monuments Service, called it a “once-in-a-lifetime” find that would “add greatly to our knowledge of this magical archaeological landscape.”

16 COOL CAREERS IN SCIENCE: DRONE PILOTS