Aerial survey has only played a minor role in the Danish archaeology. Despite the fact that it has been practiced since 1955, and that discovery of some of the most famous Iron Age settlements and field systems was done using aerial photography, only a few Danish archaeologists have taken the "bird's eye view". Both the agricultural practice and the geology make big parts of the country very suitable for aerial archaeology. Some 70% of the country is under intensive cultivation, and large parts of Jutland, or continental Denmark, consist of sandy soils, which are known to have produced crop marks as well as soil marks. Since the Second World War, the intensification of agriculture, use of heavy machinery and bigger ploughs, have been a growing threat to the buried remains of our ancestors' settlements and burial grounds. Other threats include a still growing demand for housing and a very destructive way of planting new forest called deep ploughing, which turns the sterile subsoil to the surface.

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Aerial reconnaissance meets these demands. This is the reason why the project "The landscape of the past - seen from the air" has been started. It's a joint venture of a post graduate student Michael Vinter with three local museums and amateur pilots in the northern part of Jutland.

The project is to run from 2005 until 2007, and is a part of the international project "Past Landscapes in the Baltic Region".
During the first summer it has only been possible to get 12 hours of flying, but they have not been wasted. It has been possible to record a number of archaeological features in the fields, some of which are shown here. 

The first photograph shows a systems of road tracks in a preserve heath landscape. The age of these roads is not known, but they are properly from historic times. (IMG 1124)

The second photograph (IMG 1142) shows parts of a large settlement, mainly consisting of pit-houses. Some thirty pit-houses can here be seen as positive crop-marks. Such sunken houses have normally been used for textile manufacturing that has been confirmed by a recent ground survey of the site. During the survey several brooches from 7th and 8th century A.C. were also found.

No all promising looking crop marks are traces of prehistoric activities. The crop marks in IMG 1252 were first thought to be an Iron Age village but they are, in fact, fertiliser marks.

In the prehistoric landscape, burial mounds have been very predominant features. It's considered, that some 30000 mounds have existed in Denmark, but only a minor parts have survived until this day. Many burial mounds have been levelled by ploughing and are now only visible as either crop- or soil-marks. Examples can be seen in IMG 1179 and IMG 2763. Note the preserved group of mounds on IMG 1179. Once upon a time they were part of much larger group of mounds. 
These few examples should clearly show the potential of the "bird's eye view". There is still much to be discovered.
 

19/10-2005
Michael Vinter 

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