The Antonine wall distance slabs and LiDAR as metric survey: shedding new light on a world heritage site

The Hidden Landscape of a Roman Frontier project focuses on the landscape archaeology, history and heritage management of the Antonine Wall a World Heritage site in central Scotland. The project’s primary dataset consists of LiDAR data covering the extent of the World Heritage Site.

The following investigation argues that through the careful use of the measurements contained within LiDAR data rather than through its visualisation, new answers to existing archaeological questions can be obtained. It will demonstrate that the pes Drusianus was used as the standard measurement for the construction of the Wall and thus the locations for a number of the intersections between the construction sectors can be established. The confirmation that the distances inscribed on the slabs are accurate and the inscriptions account for not only the occurrence of the primary but also the secondary installations brings into question the Gillam hypothesis that has underpinned Antonine Wall studies for the past 40 years. A location for Slab No.19 is also suggested along with an argument supporting Carriden as the eastern terminus for the frontier.