Testing Multiple Geophysical Methods at Fremont Archaeological Sites

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The ephemeral nature of many Fremont habitation sites has made site identification extremely difficult for Fremont archaeologists today. Unlike the standing and partially exposed ruins of their ancestral Puebloan neighbors, the Fremont left little evidence of their habitation across the region. Those that remain include structures now buried below the modern-day surface. The application of geophysical techniques at archaeological sites throughout the world has proven to be an effective means of subsurface archaeological survey. Although geophysical technologies are by no means new, they have been repeatedly applied to regions throughout North America. However, these methods have been underutilized within the realm of Fremont archaeology. This paper reports on the employment of multiple geophysical methods, namely, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and fluxgate gradiometer surveys at three known Fremont habitation sites in the Southern Utah Valley. Including the subsequent auger and shovel pit testing that occurred at Wolf Village, Wolf Mound, and Snow Farm sites, the preliminary geophysical surveys and later ground-truthing of various geophysical anomalies revealed the effectiveness of these methods in indicating where other architectural or cultural remains existed just below the surface.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33638