Ancient Sites Spotted From Space

Thousands of possible early human settlements have been discovered by archaeologists using computers to scour satellite images. Computers scanned the images for soil discolouration and mounds caused when mud-brick settlements collapsed.

With these computer science techniques, it is possible to immediately come up with an enormous map which is methodologically very interesting, but which also shows the staggering amount of human occupation over the last 7,000 or 8,000 years.

More information:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17436400