"Broaden the search a little." Good idea; the following might help with that.
The use of multi-attribute analysis and template matching was applied to much of southern England (as far west as the Severn/Fosse Way and beyond the Wash in the north) in 2015. Over 2700 potential Boudica battle sites were initially found, then clipped to over 850 sites which were then ranked. Details are in the essay 'Finding the site of Boudica's last battle: multi-attribute analysis of sites identified by template matching.' It's a long read but well worthwhile (maybe).
Essay available on my website: Finding the site of Boudica's last battle: multi-attribute analysis of sites identified by template matching
or at Academia.edu: as above
So, if you are laboriously searching for battle sites in Google Earth (GE) then the following map and battle site lists (KMZ/KML files, data from the essay work above) might improve your productivity. Simply load them into GE and spend many happy hours wondering why you have the Boudica bug. At the very least they may demonstrate the small scale of activities in southern England, and that going west along the Portway from London was the most obvious and sensible thing for Suetonius.
The map, geomap-edit.kmz (25 meg.), is described in the essay referenced above as:
"Coloured areas are: plains in yellow; ridges in red; ridge slope areas of less than 5 degrees in green; slopes greater than 5 degrees in purple. Areas without colour are those without ridges, slopes, etc. and with topographic depressions less than 15 m in depth, e.g. low relief plains and valleys. The coastline is displayed to aid the reader and was not included on the main scene."
The blue lines are rivers/streams with flows => 0.0089 cumecs, sufficient to supply the men of the Roman army, beasts and civilians (c.15,000 humans). The river values are reconstructed for a drier-than-mean, August in 60/61 AD (computational details in the ref. essay and others on my website).
The file, RAT-top_sitesV7.kml, contains c.1100 prospective Boudica battle sites (I've saved you the anguish of looking at 2700 sites!) - they are not ranked.
The file, top-100-sites.KMZ, contains the top 100 Boudica battle sites from the work described in the essay above.
If all files are loaded to GE then you will see something like the area in the map below, east of Old Burghclere and the prospective defiles mentioned by Nathan. Leaving aside other variables, neither are suitable because they could be too readily flanked. Ranked sites 94 and 99 are within a topographic depression but generally are very poorly placed, hence the low ranking. The good news is that for these sites to even make the top 100 suggests that the really prospective sites will be very much more statistically supported by the attributes used in the ranking. This was shown to be correct, with the top 6 battle sites more significant than the remainder; this is discussed in the essay.
Have fun and good hunting, Steve Kaye.
P.S. I'm putting these files up as aids but will not be responding to queries - takes too much time and most answers are in the essay(s) (but I may change my mind).
P.P.S. the best site along the Portway-Silchester route is at Ogbourne St. George (rank 4).
The use of multi-attribute analysis and template matching was applied to much of southern England (as far west as the Severn/Fosse Way and beyond the Wash in the north) in 2015. Over 2700 potential Boudica battle sites were initially found, then clipped to over 850 sites which were then ranked. Details are in the essay 'Finding the site of Boudica's last battle: multi-attribute analysis of sites identified by template matching.' It's a long read but well worthwhile (maybe).
Essay available on my website: Finding the site of Boudica's last battle: multi-attribute analysis of sites identified by template matching
or at Academia.edu: as above
So, if you are laboriously searching for battle sites in Google Earth (GE) then the following map and battle site lists (KMZ/KML files, data from the essay work above) might improve your productivity. Simply load them into GE and spend many happy hours wondering why you have the Boudica bug. At the very least they may demonstrate the small scale of activities in southern England, and that going west along the Portway from London was the most obvious and sensible thing for Suetonius.
The map, geomap-edit.kmz (25 meg.), is described in the essay referenced above as:
"Coloured areas are: plains in yellow; ridges in red; ridge slope areas of less than 5 degrees in green; slopes greater than 5 degrees in purple. Areas without colour are those without ridges, slopes, etc. and with topographic depressions less than 15 m in depth, e.g. low relief plains and valleys. The coastline is displayed to aid the reader and was not included on the main scene."
The blue lines are rivers/streams with flows => 0.0089 cumecs, sufficient to supply the men of the Roman army, beasts and civilians (c.15,000 humans). The river values are reconstructed for a drier-than-mean, August in 60/61 AD (computational details in the ref. essay and others on my website).
The file, RAT-top_sitesV7.kml, contains c.1100 prospective Boudica battle sites (I've saved you the anguish of looking at 2700 sites!) - they are not ranked.
The file, top-100-sites.KMZ, contains the top 100 Boudica battle sites from the work described in the essay above.
If all files are loaded to GE then you will see something like the area in the map below, east of Old Burghclere and the prospective defiles mentioned by Nathan. Leaving aside other variables, neither are suitable because they could be too readily flanked. Ranked sites 94 and 99 are within a topographic depression but generally are very poorly placed, hence the low ranking. The good news is that for these sites to even make the top 100 suggests that the really prospective sites will be very much more statistically supported by the attributes used in the ranking. This was shown to be correct, with the top 6 battle sites more significant than the remainder; this is discussed in the essay.
Have fun and good hunting, Steve Kaye.
P.S. I'm putting these files up as aids but will not be responding to queries - takes too much time and most answers are in the essay(s) (but I may change my mind).
P.P.S. the best site along the Portway-Silchester route is at Ogbourne St. George (rank 4).
