An Examination of the mounds in the Plain Ceyhan using remote sensing and geographic information systems

ABSTRACT MSc THESIS AN EXAMINATION OF THE MOUNDS IN THE PLAIN CEYHAN USING REMOTE SENSING AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS FARİS DEMİR DEPARTMENT OF ARCHAEOMETRY INSTITUTE OF NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCES UNIVERSITY OF ÇUKUROVA Supervisor : Assoc. Prof.Dr. A. Oğuz DİNÇ Year: 2002 Pages: 115 Jury : Assoc. Prof.Dr. A. Oğuz DİNÇ Assist. Prof.Dr. K. Serdar GİRGİNER Assist. Prof.Dr. Erhan AKÇA Studies on the cultural inventory of the Ceyhan Plain is not sufficient. Moreover, due to the agricultural practices, urbanisation, and industrial growth many hoyuks were partly and/or totally destroyed. Hence, designation of the hoyuks in the plain by field studies is quite difficult and requires the application of new technologies. Thus, this study is aimed to designate the hoyuks via Remote Sensing technologies and process the data on Geographical Information Systems for quick and effective database solutions. Panchromatic aerial photographs dating back to 1956, 1957, and 1973 along with 21 Jan 2000 satellite images were evaluated for the determination of hoyuks with significant features and the destroyed, leveled and buried ones. Since 3, 4 and 5 bands of Landsat 7-ETM image revealed better reflection values they were utilised for the study. Bands of 6 and 7 were not used. Moreover, the panchromatic band of 8, which has more resolution values were used for the image enhancing. For image enhancing process Landsat 7-ETM 3, 5 and 8 bands along with Histogram Equalization and Auto Linear method were used. For the unsupervised image process Landsat 7-ETM 3, 4 and 5 bands were used are 7 classes were selected within this study. Since hoyuks, roads, present settlements and dry stream beds have similar reflection values, they were put in the same class. When digitized maps were overlaid, hoyuks were easily differentiated from present settlements, roads and dry stream beds. 22 hoyuks were determined in 3 test sites, out of these 5 hoyuks are newly found and recorded. This interdiciplinary study revealed that, archaeometric studies where natural and basic science methods are used, should be included in archaeologic studies. Key Words: Plain of Ceyhan, Archaeology, Mound, Remote Sensing, Geographic Information System.