Unseen Aztalan: Preliminary Results of a Geomagnetic Survey of the Aztalan Enclosure

Summary

Lynne Goldstein’s compilation of a GIS-based map of the Aztalan site, portraying all investigations through 1996, visually integrated almost two centuries of archaeological work at the site in southern Wisconsin. Lynne’s map made two things startlingly clear. First, decades of excavations were not all referenced to a common datum and few had left visible surface indications, making it difficult to relocate earlier excavations and avoid re-excavating disturbed contexts. Second, just 10% of the core residential area has been excavated and far less than 10% of the entire site has been studied. To gain large-scale spatial control over ancient and modern subsurface disturbances across the site, the authors undertook a comprehensive magnetic gradient survey of the entire palisaded portion of the site. Data were collected using a Foerster Ferex 4.032 4-probe fluxgate gradiometer array mounted on a handcart. Data collection and processing was conducted by Ohio Valley Archaeology, Inc. Results of the survey are leading to a more comprehensive understanding of site organization and refined knowledge of the locations of excavations and other modern ground disturbance activities. Future fieldwork will focus on ground-truthing geophysical anomalies and updating archaeological knowledge of the site for all stakeholders.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20364