The lessons of J.L. Giddings' early attempt at geophysical surveying in the western Arctic

Summary

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 introduced as a dating technique. He also made use of radiocarbon dating shortly after the technique became available in the early 1950s. Less well known, however, is Giddings early attempt at implementing geophysical techniques in his field investigations. Most notably, Giddings attempted magnetometer surveying only two years after the technique saw its first serious use in archaeology, and two years before the first published magnetic survey in N. America in 1962. This paper discusses Giddings’ early use of geophysical methods in light of later developments in archaeological geophysics and current field research in the region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Envisioning and Re-envisioning Arctic Archaeology: The Enduring Legacies of J. Louis Giddings (1909-1964)

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