Taken from 70,000 feet during the Gulf wars, the Lockheed U-2 “Dragon Lady” Spy Plane was an effective aerial reconnaissance platform to capture images of military intelligence value such as foreign bases, airfields, and potential nuclear weapons facilities. But image analysts began to identify high-resolution photos of historical, ethnographic, and archaeological sites and landscapes.
Among the images of 1960s era towns and villages were traces of ancient and historical settlements and land use.
Developed in the late 1950s by Lockheed Skunk Works, the U-2 spy planes flying high over militarily significant sites in Europe and Asia were able to capture images so detailed that individual people could be seen.
Even in the then modern 1950s landscape, there were visible traces of much earlier civilizations. Especially evident are areas of the Tigris valley that were impounded by dams, cutting off water to down-stream areas, changing the landscape and cultures of the area.