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SYMPOSIUM PHOTO INTERPRETATION, DELFT 1962 
The land in that part of Great Britain which lies between the Solway Firth 
and the mouth of the River Tyne to the south, and the Firths of Clyde and 
Forth to the north, comprises broad coastal bands of excellent cultivable ground, 
together with a central mass, much of which is good hill-pasture. Considerable 
areas of the latter, situated on the higher parts of the lower hills and up the 
valleys penetrating the higher ones, have not been ploughed or otherwise 
cultivated since prehistoric times. As a result of this, ruined and decayed 
habitations of various categories and sizes have survived there in a better 
state of preservation than is usually the case elsewhere. 
These include large and small hill-forts and settlements defended by stone 
walls or by ramparts and ditches, as well as small embanked farmsteads and 
homesteads - all of types which have been recorded in other regions as well as 
in the district under review. But in addition to these, significant numbers of 
other monuments, the existence of which was until recently quite unsuspected, 
have now been identified and explored. These discoveries began in 1946, 
when fieldwork was being resumed in connection with the preparation of the 
Inventory of the County of Roxburgh, by the Royal Commission on the Ancient 
and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Photographs of the area, which had 
now become available for the first time, formed part of the aerial survey of the 
whole of Great Britain which had been completed before the Photographical 
Reconnaissance Units of the Royal Air Force were disbanded. Examination of 
some of these revealed that in certain places in the regions of hill-pasture there 
existed markings which appeared as thin pale lines in patches of heather or 
grass, some in the form of small circles or arcs of circles, others as much larger 
oval or circular figures. These markings seemed to stand somewhere between 
shadows and crop-marks; and when some of them were visited on the ground, 
it was found that they actually appeared as narrow and very shallow grooves,