O. G. S. Crawford
O. G. S. Crawford (1886 - November 28, 1957) was a pioneer in the use of aerial photographs for deepening archaelogical understanding of the landscape. During the First World War he was an observer with the Royal Flying Corps. Then in 1920 he was appointed Archaeology Officer of the Ordnance Survey. In 1927 he founded Antiquity; A Quarterly Review of Archaeology.During the Second World War he was responsible for saving much historical material in his garage in Nursling when the Ordnance Survey offices in Southampton were burnt out in an air-raid.
In 1951 he wrote: ""How much nonsense have not we of the present generation seen faded by our silence (...) Where now are (...) the Old Straight Trackers (...)." He did not live to see the revival Ley Lines from the late 1960s.
"Future archaeologists will perhaps excavate the ruined factories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when the radiation effects of Atom bombs have died away" he wrote in his 1953 book, Archaeology in the Field.
