Directed at
This course is designed for university students and professionals worldwide interested in landscape archaeology, remote sensing, GIS applications, drone photogrammetry, and the integration of artificial intelligence in archaeological research.
The program focuses on exploring and documenting the medieval cultural landscape of the Pyrenees, covering Romanesque churches, fortified castles, abandoned settlements, and rock-cut necropolises from the 10th to 14th centuries.
Through practical field recording and computer laboratory sessions, participants learn the end-to-end data pipeline: from aerial and GNSS field survey to LiDAR processing, GIS database structure, and automated information synthesis with Claude AI.
Previous knowledge or experience in archaeology or specific software is not required.
Field School Life & Schedule
The daily schedule is divided between outdoor fieldwork (drone capture, ground-truthing, GNSS collection) and laboratory analysis (point-cloud classification, QGIS/ArcGIS workflows, AI prompt engineering). Field sessions operate five hours daily. For every five working days, students have two consecutive days off to rest or explore regional heritage sites.
The official instructional language of the course is English.
Assessment and certificate
Students keep a daily field journal, complete the course recording sheets and give a short final presentation; together with daily participation these make up the final grade (A to F). At the end of the course students receive a Certificate of Completion stating the course, dates, instructional hours and final grade. On request, the Course Director issues a Student Evaluation Report for the student's university, and students with outstanding performance may receive a letter of recommendation. See the syllabus (PDF).
