An aerial view of the past - aerial archaeology in Denmark

Holstebro Museum in western Denmark has secured funding for a four-year aerial archaeology research project. The project is set to run until 2013, comprises nine sub-projects and has a budget of sic 650,000. This article deals with the preliminary results of aerial survey and monitoring of scheduled ancient monuments from the air. In 2008 and 2009 the project totalled about 130 flying hours and located some 560 sites. This paper presents an overview of the first 100 fully recorded localities: among other results house sites were found at 33 of the 100 sites and pit-houses provide a good opportunity to obtain an overview of Late Iron Age and Viking Age settlements (20% of the total number of sites date from these periods). Results of the first aerial monitoring of 50 scheduled monuments are also presented. Even these early results allow us to say that there is great potential inherent in both sub-projects.