Citizen Scientists Studying LiDAR Maps Have Found 1,000 Prehistoric Burial Mounds Across the Netherlands

        Archaeological landscapes revealed      
     by EU Citizen science

Min Chen, Thousands of Citizen Scientists Studying LiDAR Maps Have Found 1,000 Prehistoric Burial Mounds Across the Netherlands Art Net News  February 10, 2023

Some 6,500 citizen scientists in the Netherlands have located a trove of archaeological remains across the Veluwe and Utrechtse Heuvelrug regions while working with researchers at Leiden University. Their findings included more than 1,000 burial mounds dating to 2,800–500 B.C.E., in addition to prehistoric field complexes known as Celtic fields, charcoal kilns, cart tracks, and other archaeological objects.

The hunt was spearheaded by Heritage Quest, a collaborative venture between the university and Gelderland Heritage, a cooperative of 30 heritage organizations. From 2020, the project tasked its participants with examining some 600,000 LiDAR maps of the Veluwe and Utrechtse Heuvelrug areas on Zooniverse, a citizen science web portal, to detect new archaeological structures.

“With the help of thousands of citizen scientists, we were able to investigate a much wider region and in much greater detail than professional archaeologists alone could attain,” Eva Kaptijn, an archaeologist with Gelderland Heritage, told Artnet News.

“Without the volunteers, this project would have taken years and not be as reliable,” she said, adding that every map on Zooniverse was inspected by about 15 people.

Following the online discoveries by citizen scientists, archaeologists and archaeology students from the university headed out into the field in the summer of 2021 to verify the remains.

Taking soil samples from more than 300 burial mounds, the team found that 80 of these were previously undiscovered structures—effectively doubling the number of known mounds in the area. Further studies have led them to believe that more than 1,250 of the sites pinpointed by citizen scientists could be prehistoric.

This contrasts with the British Isles where "citizen archaeology" is the label applied by archaeologists (!)  to artefact hunters with metal detectors and spades who will also use LIDAR images and open-source satellite photos to locate features (such as burial mounds) to then go and try to dig out any diagnostic and collectable artefacts that they will pocket and in (only) some cases report having removed. No archaeological surveys, archaeological verification on-the-ground, let alone soil sampling. The British approach is a sledge-hammer one that leads to the devastation of the archaeological landscape rather than revealing it.

"You done well" allegedly said the Kent FLO - really?
They never denied it. 

In the Dutch case:

In addition to reorienting the current view of prehistory in the region, Kaptijn said, the material gathered by Heritage Quest will go toward informing policymaking around archaeological preservation, one of the project’s stated aims. She added that the engagement of the Dutch public has been central to that effort.

“Studies, including our own, have shown that this results in better protection of the heritage,” she said about the participation of citizen scientists. “By engaging the public, awareness of important archaeological heritage is created as is a greater sense of place and a feeling of ownership.”

The only ownership that British detectorists feel is to the artefacts hidden in their pockets that come from "their" jealously-guarded "productive sites".