Geophysics (Other Keyword)
26-50 (64 Records)
Petra is famous for the many tomb façades and complex water management systems carved in its surrounding mountains. The ancient city has been studied by traditional archaeological survey and excavation techniques for more than 100 years. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) has been previously used in several locations with excellent results, including in front of the al-Khazneh ("the Treasury"), near the Temple of the Winged Lions, on the "Upper Market" and the Garden and Pool Complex (the "Lower...
Ground-Penetrating Radar Prospection for 17th Century Archaeological Sites (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "“Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution”: Identifying and Understanding Early Historic-Period House Sites" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Early colonial archaeological sites often exhibit low artifact densities during walkover or other early-phase field investigations. Furthermore, numerous feature classes may be present but not sampled by traditional testing strategies. These are detectable with geophysical surveys,...
Ground-penetrating Radar Survey and Excavation of the Golden Eagle (11C120) Embankment (2015)
The Golden Eagle site (11C120), located near the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, in Calhoun County, Illinois, is the only known Lower Illinois Valley mound site that includes an earthen enclosure. The site is frequently discussed in regional interpretations of moundbuilding traditions, though little is directly known about the site, particularly the embankment. Archaeological investigations have been limited to topographic mapping, pedestrian surveys, and limited inspection of...
A Hot New Technology: Advancing Methodologies for Archaeological Aerial Thermography (2017)
Since the 1970s, archaeologists have known that a wide range of features, including subsurface architecture, pits and ditches, pathways, and surface artifacts should theoretically be visible in an aerial thermal image, but technological hurdles largely prevented thermography from being deployed in most field settings. Recent research has begun to take advantage of new lightweight, uncooled thermal cameras, increasingly reliable drones, and photogrammetric image processing software,...
Innovations in Geophysical Survey of a WWII B-24H in a duck pond in Morgo, Italy (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "East Carolina University Partnerships and Innovation with Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. On January 30, 1944 a B-24H was struck by anti-aircraft during an attack on Udine, Italy, lost altitude, and crashed on the Morgo Island. One member of the ten-man crew survived and two bodies were recovered; seven crew members remain on site today. Preliminary investigations of the...
Integration of multiple geophysical datasets to classify archaeological responses (2017)
North American archaeologists are increasing using multiple near-surface geophysical techniques at archaeological sites to locate features of interest. Examining different physical properties in the subsurface has greatly improved archaeological interpretations; however, these data are often examined in a subjective site specific fashion (notable exceptions are the pioneering work of Kvamme and Ernenwein). This research seeks to quantitatively integrate magnetic gradiometry, frequency-domain...
It's Not an Anomaly: Demonstrating the Principles and Practice of Investigating Adobe Features with Ground-Penetrating Radar (2018)
Earthen architecture has significant representation in building traditions across large temporal and geographic expanses, so everyone’s people at one time or another dabbled in this technology. Adobe, also known also as dagga, ferey, cob, and other names is a variant in which soil and other materials are formulated into discrete construction components, often in communities of practice for which adobe recipes, preparation, and application are integral to daily intersections of home and...
The lessons of J.L. Giddings' early attempt at geophysical surveying in the western Arctic (2016)
Archaeologist J. Louis Giddings is known widely for his excavations of major sites in the western arctic from the 1940s until his untimely death in 1964. Giddings was also a notable innovator in archaeological science, integrating new techniques into his research almost immediately after they were developed. Very early on in his career, for example, Giddings made use of dendrochronology, establishing some of the earliest tree-ring chronologies in Alaska. This was immediately after dendro was...
Magnetic Gradient Survey of a Hunter-Gatherer Plank House Village at the Dionisio Point Site, Northwest Coast of North America (2016)
We present the results of magnetometry survey of four houses at the Dionisio Point site, a 1,500 year-old settlement in the Gulf Islands of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Intensive excavations have uncovered much of one of five substantial houses. It is the remains of a shed-roof plank house, the winter residence of a large multi-family corporate group. We suggest that the rest were contemporaneous households organized in a similar fashion and that Dionisio likely constituted an example...
Magnetic Gradiometry in the Spatial Reconstruction of the Early Agricultural Period Canal System at La Playa, Mexico (2016)
La Playa (SON F:10:3), in Sonora, Mexico, is an Early Agricultural period (2100 B.C.-A.D. 50) archaeological site which has the remains of an irrigation canal system. The Early Agricultural Period is characterized by the development of agriculture in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. Due to severe erosion at La Playa, intact canals and cultivated soils had not been located for study. Magnetic gradiometry was used to detect intact agricultural features buried by alluvium....
Magnetic Susceptibility of Soils: Tephra, Erosion, and Fire on Columbia Plateau Landscapes (2017)
Sedimentation and soil formation on uplands of the Columbia Plateau are strongly influenced by climate, tephras, erosion of arid lands, and fire regimes. Magnetic susceptibility of in situ strata, and laboratory samples from arroyo profiles of the Yakima Upland Fold Belt can help untangle the interactions of these processes in shaping natural and cultural landscapes. Records from four profiles of overlapping age (500 to 9000 BP) are compared. Data for mass specific magnetic susceptibility are...
Mapping Residential and Public Space in Cahokia’s Merrell Tract: Results of Recent Magnetic Surveys (2017)
The Merrell Tract is located west of Monk’s Mound and just outside downtown Cahokia. It is well known for excavations of the famous Woodhenge at its west end and a large residential district at the east end. However, very little is known about what lies between. In 2012 and 2013, with logistical funding from the Cahokia Mounds Museum Society and the Illinois Association for Advancement of Archaeology, a large-area magnetic survey was undertaken to determine the density and extent of the area’s...
Mapping Sans-Souci: Geophysical Survey at the Palace of Henry Christophe, Haiti (2016)
The Royal Palace of Sans-Souci, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the town of Milot in northern Haiti, served as a central political space within the short-lived Kingdom of Haiti (1811-1820). Despite the critical importance this site holds for our understanding of state formation in the years following the Haitian revolution, we know precious little about the construction history of the site itself, which extended back into the Colonial Era. During the summer of 2015, archaeologists from...
Marine geophysics reveals the character of the now submerged Paleo-Agulhas Plain (2015)
This work was undertaken to understand the evolution of the terrestrial landscape now submerged by high sea levels offshore of Mossel Bay. Two marine geophysical surveys and scuba diving were used to examine evidence of past sea-level fluctuations and interpret seafloor geological deposits. Eight seismic sequences characterise the shelf, extending from the Mid-Cretaceous to the Holocene time. Geological mapping dating by Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) revealed that the most prominent...
The Middle Fork Geophysics Project, Central Idaho (2017)
The Middle Fork Salmon River is a designated Wild and Scenic river located within the heart of the Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho. Over the last three years the University of Pittsburgh, the Salmon-Challis National Forest and the University of Sheffield have collaborated on a minimally invasive multi-method geophysical and geochemical approach for characterizing intact archaeological deposits at seven prehistoric sites impacted by recreational activities. The...
New Data from the Great Meadows: Geophysical and Archaeological Investigations at Fort Necessity National Battlefield (2016)
Fort Necessity National Battlefield marks the location of the July 3, 1754 engagement between British and Colonial forces led by Lt. Col. George Washington and a force of French soldiers and allied Native Americans. The day-long battle took place within the Great Meadows, a natural clearing chosen by Washington to centralize supplies and livestock while clearing a road westward through the Allegheny Mountains. A hastily fortified storehouse referred to as a "fort of necessity" was ultimately...
A new prespective on landscape archaeology through electromagnetic induction survey (2016)
While electromagnetic induction (EM) instruments have been used for archaeological prospection since the 1960's, until recently their implementation remained rare. Only during the past decade EM sensors, which allow capturing both magnetic and electrical properties of the subsurface, have become a more standard part of the archaeo-geophysical toolbox. Weighing heavily on applications in soil science, EM surveys are now proving their worth in discerning both human and natural variations. Through...
On the Banks Opposite of Matamoros: Using Modern Archeological Techniques to Understand and Manage the Opening Battles of the U.S.-Mexican War 1846-1848 (2016)
In the spring of 1846 General Zachary Taylor led half of the U.S. Army to the northern banks of the Rio Grande to occupy the territory claimed by both Mexico and the recently annexed state of Texas. This show of force was intended to pressure Mexico into peacefully releasing these lands to the United States. However, by early May Taylor’s troops would defeat the Mexican Army at the battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and the Siege of Fort Brown and occupy Matamoros. These opening...
Pioneer Family Cemeteries at Scott Air Force Base, St. Clair County, Illinois (1995)
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Pluralistic Communities, Coalescence, and Population Aggregation at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale (2015)
Recent ethnohistorical research on the Spanish mission communities of La Florida has done much to document and elucidate complicated patterns of indigenous population relocations. These migrations, aggregations, and dispersals—due to multiple factors such as epidemics, Spanish reducción policies, and flight from antagonistic native groups—resulted in the formation of complex and diverse colonial social networks. At Mission Santa Catalina de Guale (GA), the most pronounced of these was the...
Political and Economic patchworks in Viking Age Iceland (2017)
The 9th century Norse settlement of Iceland resulted in a system of semi-territorial petty chiefdoms, with local and island-wide regular assemblies. The volcanic island was divided up into four quarters, each with three or four local assemblies. Farmers had to pledge their allegiance to one of the chiefs within their quarter, creating a patchwork of alliances. Farms themselves may also have been cobbled together from non-contiguous blocks which allowed access to different environmental...
A President's Neighbors: Geophysical Survey and Excavation of the Forney House Lot at Herbert Hoover National Historic Site (2021)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Archaeology of Neighborhoods and Communities (General Sessions)" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Damaging flood events along Hoover Creek at Herbert Hoover National Historic Site in West Branch, Iowa have prompted plans for major construction within this historic neighborhood. In advance of the flood mitigation project, archeologists at the Midwest Archeological Center (MWAC) undertook a...
The Promise and Pitfalls of Geophysical Survey at Valley Forge NHP (2015)
The use of geophysical survey techniques to identify potential archeological deposits has a long history at Valley Forge NHP (VFNHP). As early as 1974, while it was still a state park, Dr. Bruce Bevan conducted magnetometer and GPR surveys of some of the brigade areas. Since 2011, archeologists at VFNHP have undertaken a series of geophysical surveys aimed at identifying possible encampment related features. The surveys produced a series of promising anomalies, many of which have been tested...
Prospects for Detection of Ephemeral Historic Sod Structures Using Geophysical Techniques in Custer County, Nebraska (2015)
Sod houses represent one form of ephemeral historic structure that became common to portions of the Great Plains as a result of the Homestead Act of 1862. Since their construction in the late 1800s and early 1900s, sod house and out buildings have either been preserved, allowed to "melt," deliberately removed and put under cultivation. This poster examines the documentation of these structures under various post-occupation conditions through the use of surface level, non-destructive, geophysical...
Regional Synthesis and Best Practices for the Application of Geophysics to Archaeological Projects in the Middle Atlantic Region. (2016)
As geophysical surveys become more common and a standard procedure on archeological projects within the United States, the question raised is whether or not the methods and systems being used are appropriate for the questions being asked by the principal investigators. Therefore, a compilation of geophysical methods used during archaeological investigations and their results in the Middle Atlantic region, primarily those used on transportation projects, was conducted as part of the Route 301...