THE ARCHAEOLOGY COURSEBOOK CHAPTER 1 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECONNAISSANCE
Jun 01, 2015
THE ARCHAEOLOGY COURSEBOOK
CHAPTER 1
ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECONNAISSANCE
Methods Desktop study Surface survey Geophysical / geochemical survey Aerial survey Remote sensing
Chance!
BUT…
Not everything is lost from view!
Sites that were never lost
Pyramids at Giza
(But NOT the Sphinx!)
Stonehenge
Sites found by chance Lascaux Altamira Otzi the Iceman Pete Marsh Xian
Historical Documents
Legal documents Economic records Tax records Pictorial records Written accounts Archaeological records & reports Oral accounts Maps
Legal Documents Records of ownership Anglo-Saxon charters Court orders Wills Inventories
Charter from King Eadwig granting forty hides at Ely to Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury, 957 AD.
(Bodleian Library, Oxford)
Economic Records Orders & sales lists Agent’s bills (e.g. estates) Directories of services Plans & Drafts
Original plans for Brunel's railway bridge at Windsor
Tax Records
Linked to ownership Tithe awards Tax surveys
(e.g. Domesday Book)
Instructions for the collection of “Domesday” returns i.e. taxes!
Pictorial Records Paintings Photographs
Turner’s painting of
Stonehenge(1825)
Pictorial Records
Engravings Aerial Photographs
Boise, Idaho (USA), 1888
Durham City, present day
Written Accounts
Descriptions of places
found in:
1. diaries
2. books
e.g. antiquarian work
Image of Stonehenge from William Stukeley’s book
(1740)
Archaeological Records !
Previous excavations & surveyslocated in:
museumslibrariesSMRsNMR
ARCHIVE PHOTOS: JERICHO
SCHEDULED MONUMENT
Oral Accounts From people living in the area Might know what has happened in the
relatively recent past– knowledge of past visits by
anthropologists– knowledge of past techniques and
working areas (e.g. pottery making)– farmers’ knowledge of recently ploughed
areas– knowledge of recent locations of
buildings
Maps
One of the MOST important tools Used to examine and locate sites in the
landscape track changes through time
e.g. boundaries, land units, fields, hedges
Regression using Maps
Can work back from the oldest available map
Cross-reference historical sources and fieldnames / place-names
develop maps for periods prior to mapping (e.g. Medieval period)
Early Mapsfrom 16th Century
onwards
Not always to scale
May include visual aspects e.g. illustrations
Engraved map of Hampshire, incl. vignette of Southampton.
Thomas Moule,1845
Modern Ordnance Survey (OS) Maps
from 19th Century onwards mapped each county at 1 inch to 1 mile give details of individual buildings
developed use of grid system
can use series of maps to see changes in land use over time
Other Useful Maps
High resolution maps- i.e. good scale such as OS 1:25000 series
Geological Maps Street maps Vegetation &
Climate maps Survey maps
Surface Survey
fieldwalking surveying aerial photography
recognise scatters
develop contour maps
(can be densities of pottery / lithics)
Dot density plot for ceramics (each dot
equals 0.1 ceramic sherd per field walking tract),
southern Romania.
Fieldwalking
Surface collection (US term)
Systematic collection of artefacts
Decisions:- collect all pieces?- collect only diagnostic pieces?- width of traverses / size of grids?
Pros & Cons of Fieldwalking Cheap! Quick and relatively easy Only useful on arable land (recently
ploughed) Results are only guidance (things
migrate) Differential collection / recognition by
different fieldwalkers
SURFACE SURVEY
Other Surface Survey Methods
Shovel pit testing (taking regular buckets of soil from test pits and sieving
them) Coring (extract sample of
subsoil Augering snapshot of stratigraphy) Probing
Somewhat destructive & time-consuming!
TEST PITS
Geophysical & Geochemical Methods
Analysis of heavy metals and lipids in topsoil (e.g. phosphates)
Detection of magnetic & electrical anomalies
GEOPHYSICS: FIELD BOUNDARIES
MAQGNETOMETRY AT ALFOLDEAN 2OO5
LONGBARROW: COMPARISON OF RESISTIVITY AND MAGNETOMETRY
RESISTIVITY
RESISTIVITY AT ALFOLDEAN
RESISTIVITY
MAGNETOMETRY AT ALFOLDEAN
Resistivity Survey Pass an electrical charge
through the soil Measure differences in
conductance
More moisture greater conductivity
Buried ditch usually retains water conducts water better than surrounding soil
Long Barrow, Gloucs
shows flanking ditches
Magnetometry
Measures local magnetic distortions
Can be due to: digging of pits
(in-fill will have different magnetic charge than the subsoil)
fires (kilns or hearths reset the magnetic field)
Aerial Survey Aerial
Photography
from light aircraft or balloons
verticals / obliques
cropmarks / shadow sites / soil colours Barrow cemetery
(oblique, cropmarks), Cavendish, Suffolk
AP OBLIQUE OF DMV
CROPMARKS
AP OBLIQUE OF STONEHENGE
AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY FROM A KITE
AP FROM A KITE
AP: ONE OF A STEREO PAIR
Remote Sensing
from non-ground
based methods
i.e. from planes and satellites
radar sonar thermal imaging infrared
photographysatellite image of the Heraklean
Peninsula, Ukraine
SATELLITE IMAGES
INFRARED PHOTOGRAPHY
GIS LANDSCAPE NET
Underwater Archaeology has its own set of techniques and methods
e.g. Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs)