Archaeological Prospection最新文献

{"title":"Archaeological prospection of a prehistoric lithic workshop site using ground penetrating radar with a high-frequency antenna unit","authors":"Pavel Ryazantsev,&nbsp;Aleksey Tarasov,&nbsp;Maksim Potakhin","doi":"10.1002/arp.1896","DOIUrl":"10.1002/arp.1896","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We surveyed in detail the Chalcolithic lithic workshop Fofanovo XIII an East Fennoscandian region by ground-penetrating radar (GPR). A high-frequency antenna unit was applied to map small-scale features, mainly waste flakes. To substantiate the efficiency of the GPR technique, we performed a primary analysis of a set of equivalent models in a sandbox. The laboratory-scale GPR investigation highlights differences in GPR patterns depending on the spatial arrangement of small features and supports the further interpretation of real-life data. The GPR survey in the field covered 2200 m², revealing areas with a high density of artefacts in the cultural layer and locating individual structural elements of the Fofanovo XIII archaeological site. We suggested using microdebitage samples from manual probing to verify the detected anomalous values of GPR attributes. The results point to a significant correlation between microdebitage and the envelope peak amplitude of the echo signal. Ultimately, our study confirmed the cultural layer in the Fofanovo XIII workshop site to be rich in lithic production wastes, indicating it was a place of mass-scale production of lithic chopping tools.</p>","PeriodicalId":55490,"journal":{"name":"Archaeological Prospection","volume":"30 3","pages":"341-355"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48798378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Soils of the World. By Wolfgang Zech, Peter Schad and Gerd Hintermaier-Erhard, Springer Verlag. 2022. £95.50. ISBN 978-3-540-30460-9 ISBN 978-3-540-30461-6","authors":"Matthew Canti","doi":"10.1002/arp.1894","DOIUrl":"10.1002/arp.1894","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55490,"journal":{"name":"Archaeological Prospection","volume":"30 3","pages":"407"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44754590","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A methodology for the self-training and self-assessing of new GPR practitioners: Measuring diagnostic proficiency illustrated by a case study of a historic African-American cemetery for unmarked graves","authors":"Jacob Michael Martin,&nbsp;Mark E. Everett","doi":"10.1002/arp.1893","DOIUrl":"10.1002/arp.1893","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys of African-American cemeteries suspected to contain unmarked graves, determining the proficiency of a new GPR practitioner is vital and perhaps even more fundamental than that of the GPR hardware, deployment configuration and software. Proficiency may be defined as the practitioner's true-positive, true-negative, false-positive (i.e., false alarms) and false-negative (i.e., misses) percentages. We embarked on this research as a means to improve our own proficiency in unmarked grave detection and to develop an algorithm by which to improve the proficiency of any new GPR practitioner. After surveying the Salem Cemetery in Brazos County, TX, and the Old Danville-Shepherd Hill Cemetery in Montgomery County, TX, we first classified subsurface targets based on in-field, visual inspection of the real-time, onscreen, unprocessed (except for an automatic gain control) GPR B-scans. We then developed a proxy for ground-truthing that allowed us to calculate the proficiency of the in-field classifications. From this proxy, we established a quantitative prevalence threshold for identifying or rejecting a subsurface object as a target of interest. Its quantitative nature allowed us to quantitatively control and adjust that threshold, a threshold we set at 70% likely to be to a specific target of interest. We show that our classification accuracy increased from 66.2% at the Salem Cemetery to 75.0% at the Old Danville-Shepherd Hill Cemetery and, through use of diagnostic evaluations originally developed for medical imaging and herein applied to geophysics, showed that the accuracy improved due to increases in true-negative classifications, that is, in examining real-time, onscreen, mostly unprocessed GPR B-scans, discerning a potential target and correctly concluding it was not an unmarked grave. This research outlines the procedure we developed to measure the proficiency of a new GPR practitioner.</p>","PeriodicalId":55490,"journal":{"name":"Archaeological Prospection","volume":"30 3","pages":"311-325"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/arp.1893","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43422149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A long walk in the Italian countryside: Large-scale geophysical survey within the emptyscapes initiative: Examples from the Grosseto-Roselle valley, South Tuscany, Italy","authors":"Ken Saito","doi":"10.1002/arp.1892","DOIUrl":"10.1002/arp.1892","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In Italy, the potential of geophysical prospection for the characterization of archaeological landscapes, especially in previously unexplored rural or formerly urban areas, has rarely been acknowledged or seriously tested in the field, leaving the character and density of rural settlement across time virtually unknown outside areas favourable to aerial survey. It is obvious, however, that the open countryside must conceal a wide variety of archaeological information, difficult to detect and analyse within an Italian research framework largely dominated in the past by field-walking survey and artefact collection. In response, this article presents some initial results and practical lessons from a programme of large-scale magnetic survey aimed at the initial exploration of the lowland landscape of the Grosseto-Roselle valley, a few kilometres inland from the Adriatic coast, in south-western Tuscany. It is hoped that the results briefly illustrated here will encourage others to undertake similar work elsewhere in Italy and around the Mediterranean as part of a move away from an essentially ‘site-based’ approach towards a truly ‘landscape’ perspective.</p>","PeriodicalId":55490,"journal":{"name":"Archaeological Prospection","volume":"30 3","pages":"301-310"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46560916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Integration of laser level survey, photogrammetry and GPR to examine the deterioration of Roman mosaics: A case study of Venus house, Volubilis, Morocco","authors":"Ahmed Lachhab,&nbsp;El Mehdi Benyassine,&nbsp;Mustapha Atki","doi":"10.1002/arp.1887","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/arp.1887","url":null,"abstract":"Volubilis was founded in the second century B.C. and was one of the largest cities on the fringe of the Roman Empire. In 1997, it was listed as a world cultural heritage site by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and is one of the most important archaeological sites of Morocco. Volubilis is renowned for its large number of mosaic floors. Among the major mosaics of Volubilis, and undoubtedly the most remarkable ones given their aesthetic and the variety of themes they hold, are found in the house of Venus. These mosaics have been restored between the 1940s and 1950s, but unfortunately, most of these restorations are past due or nearing their ends. Today, the mosaic floors are becoming unleveled, fractured and separated from their surrounding walls. These deteriorations can be triggered by many factors including inadequate foundation, a clayey soil beneath it sensitive to moisture and the heaving of the thin concrete layer due to the expansion of the soil. The corrosion of the reinforcing bars within these concrete slabs is enabling these deformations as well. The objective of this study is to examine the causes of the mosaics' deterioration by integrating three techniques including a laser level survey, photogrammetry using a small unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAV) and ground‐penetrating radar. The methodology adopted herein can generate documentation that can be used during the preparation and decision making prior to any restoration. The restoration should not only be focused on the visible tesserae on the surface but must also consider the entire layer of the mosaics. These techniques were applied to several mosaics in Volubilis, yet only two mosaics within the house of Venus were selected for this study, and the following findings were accomplished: (1) Void spaces were found beneath the mosaic floors, (2) presence of sinking and heaving of concrete slabs and (3) potential corrosion of rebars. The three methods used in this study were in perfect concurrence in showing how the settling of the concrete slab was directly related to the deteriorations visible on the mosaic surface.","PeriodicalId":55490,"journal":{"name":"Archaeological Prospection","volume":"30 2","pages":"221 - 232"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50120168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Field systems and later prehistoric land use: New insights into land use detectability and palaeodemography in the Netherlands through LiDAR, automatic detection and traditional field data","authors":"Stijn Arnoldussen,&nbsp;Wouter B. Verschoof-van der Vaart,&nbsp;Eva Kaptijn,&nbsp;Quentin P. J. Bourgeois","doi":"10.1002/arp.1891","DOIUrl":"10.1002/arp.1891","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper discusses how the use of AI (artificial intelligence) detected later prehistoric field systems provides a more reliable base for reconstructing palaeodemographic trends, using the Netherlands as a case study. Despite its long tradition of settlement excavations, models that could be used to reconstruct (changes in) prehistoric land use have been few and often relied on (insufficiently mapped) nodal data points such as settlements and barrows. We argue that prehistoric field systems of field plots beset on all sides by earthen banks—known as Celtic fields—are a more suitable (i.e. less nodal) proxy for reconstructing later prehistoric land use.</p><p>For four 32.25 km² case study areas in different geogenetic regions of the Netherlands, prehistoric land use surface areas are modelled based on conventional methods and the results are compared to the results we obtained by using AI-assisted detection of prehistoric field systems. The nationally available LiDAR data were used for automated detection. Geotiff DTM images were fed into an object detection algorithm (based on the YOLOv4 framework and trained with known Dutch sites), and resultant geospatial vectors were imported into GIS.</p><p>Our analysis shows that AI-assisted detection of prehistoric embanked field systems on average leads to a factor 1.84 increase in known surface areas of Celtic fields. Modelling the numbers of occupants from this spatial coverage, yields population sizes of 37–135 persons for the case study regions (i.e. 1.15 to 4.19 p/km²). This range aligns well with previous estimates and offers a more robust and representative proxy for palaeodemographic reconstructions. Variations in land use coverage between the regions could be explained by differences in present-day land use and research intensity. Particularly the regionally different extent of forestlands and heathlands (ideal for the (a) preservation and (b) automated LiDAR detection of embanked field systems) explains minor variations between the four case study regions.</p>","PeriodicalId":55490,"journal":{"name":"Archaeological Prospection","volume":"30 3","pages":"283-300"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/arp.1891","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43138560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Automated large-scale mapping and analysis of relict charcoal hearths in Connecticut (USA) using a Deep Learning YOLOv4 framework","authors":"Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart,&nbsp;Alexander Bonhage,&nbsp;Anna Schneider,&nbsp;William Ouimet,&nbsp;Thomas Raab","doi":"10.1002/arp.1889","DOIUrl":"10.1002/arp.1889","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the past decade, numerous studies have successfully mapped thousands of former charcoal production sites (also called relict charcoal hearths) manually using digital elevation model (DEM) data from various forested areas in Europe and the north-eastern USA. The presence of these sites causes significant changes in the soil physical and chemical properties, referred to as legacy effects, due to high amounts of charcoal that remain in the soils. The overwhelming amount of charcoal hearths found in landscapes necessitates the use of automated methods to map and analyse these landforms. We present a novel approach based on open source data and software, to automatically detect relict charcoal hearths in large-scale LiDAR datasets (visualized with Simple Local Relief Model). In addition, the approach simultaneously provides both general as well as domain-specific information, which can be used to further study legacy effects. Different versions of the methodology were fine-tuned on data from north-western Connecticut and subsequently tested on two different areas in Connecticut. The results show that these perform adequate, with F1-scores ranging between 0.21 and 0.76, although additional post-processing was needed to deal with variations in LiDAR quality. After testing, the best performing version of the prediction model (with an average F1-score of 0.56) was applied on the entire state of Connecticut. The results show a clear overlap with the known distribution of charcoal hearths in the state, while new concentrations were found as well. This shows the usability of the approach on large-scale datasets, even when the terrain and LiDAR quality varies.</p>","PeriodicalId":55490,"journal":{"name":"Archaeological Prospection","volume":"30 3","pages":"251-266"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/arp.1889","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48860127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An integrated spatial approach to archaeological prospection using GIS and pedestrian survey data at Tell Abu Shusha, Israel","authors":"Seth J. Price,&nbsp;Matthew J. Adams,&nbsp;Yotam Tepper","doi":"10.1002/arp.1888","DOIUrl":"10.1002/arp.1888","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Geographic information systems (GIS) methods, combined with airborne remote sensing, enable collection of complex spatial datasets across broad regional areas. This article explores the use of GIS techniques for fast collection, processing and analysis of pedestrian survey data. This approach is used at Tell Abu Shusha, a multiperiod site in the Jezreel Valley of northern Israel. Surface survey of this tell and the surrounding region, conducted by the Jezreel Valley Regional Project during 2017, documented extensive visible remains of settlement features as well as the ruins of the Ottoman era village of Abu Shusha. Using this data, the potential for existing spatial analytical techniques to be modified and improved through modern processing capabilities is shown. Kolmogorov–Smirnov nonparametric tests, pure locational (k-means) and unconstrained clustering methods were applied to the field walking survey data, showing evidence of feature clustering at multiple scales as well as environmental patterning in where features are located. Results demonstrate that these approaches increase the speed and accuracy of pedestrian survey data collection and that the modification of these analytical techniques makes them more robust than before, allowing for the identification of meaningful large-scale spatial patterns.</p>","PeriodicalId":55490,"journal":{"name":"Archaeological Prospection","volume":"30 2","pages":"233-247"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48829481","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An assessment of high temporal frequency satellite data for historic environment applications. A case study from Scotland","authors":"Ciara N. McGrath,&nbsp;David C. Cowley,&nbsp;Sine Hood,&nbsp;Sheila Clarke,&nbsp;Malcolm Macdonald","doi":"10.1002/arp.1890","DOIUrl":"10.1002/arp.1890","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper assesses the value of high temporal frequency satellite data with various spatial sampling resolutions for multi-scalar historic environment survey and management use cases in Scotland, specifically for broad-brush landscape characterisation, for monitoring the condition of monuments and for the discovery of otherwise unknown sites. Dealing with a part of the world where applications of satellite imagery are almost entirely unexplored, this study takes a real-world approach, which foregrounds the purpose at hand rather than presenting a case study from an optimal setting. The study highlights the importance of detailed imagery to support interpretation in some instances, and the challenges of obtaining time-critical optical imagery in a part of the world that experiences significant periods of cloud cover. The real-world availability of data in such settings is assessed, highlighting that even with daily revisits, useable imagery cannot be guaranteed. The implications of current and past tasking patterns for availability of high-resolution data now and in the future are discussed. The study identifies the complementary roles that satellite imagery can fulfil, while identifying the limitations that remain to fuller applications of such data, in a study that will be relevant to many parts of Europe and beyond.</p>","PeriodicalId":55490,"journal":{"name":"Archaeological Prospection","volume":"30 3","pages":"267-282"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/arp.1890","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47553874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Integrating spatial and legacy data to understand archaeological sites in their landscape. A case study from Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar","authors":"Tom Fitton,&nbsp;Federica Sulas,&nbsp;Mik Lisowski,&nbsp;Michelle Alexander,&nbsp;Abdurahman Juma,&nbsp;Stephanie Wynne-Jones","doi":"10.1002/arp.1885","DOIUrl":"10.1002/arp.1885","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Spatial analysis is paramount for understanding, monitoring, and conserving ancient settlements and cultural landscapes. Advancing remote sensing and prospection techniques are expanding the methodological frame of archaeological settlement analysis by enabling remote, landscape-scale approaches to mapping and investigation. Whilst particularly effective in arid lands and areas with sparse or open ground cover, such as vegetation and buildings, these approaches remain peripheral in tropical environments because of technical and contextual challenges. In tropical Eastern Africa, for example, scales, resolution and visibility are often compromised by thick vegetation cover, inadequate access to, if not lack of, imagery resources and technologies, and the availability of comparative archaeological data for interpretation. This paper presents the initial results of spatial analysis, using historic landscape characterisation, remote sensing, published and legacy data, and a pilot ground survey to examine the earliest settlement of Zanzibar, Unguja Ukuu. Comparing multiple strands of evidence in a Geographic Information System (GIS), we use each as a test on the others to draw out the strengths and weaknesses of each technique in the context of tropical and coastal Eastern Africa. Drone photogrammetry, geophysical prospection, and ground survey were compared with legacy remote sensing resources and the results of a coring survey conducted across the site during the 1990s into a GIS platform to produce multi-phase hypothetical maps of the archaeological site in the context of its potential resource landscape. These were then tested against the results of recent excavations. The discussion highlights the challenges and potential of combining these techniques in the context of Eastern Africa and provides some suggested methods for doing so. We show that remote sensing techniques give an insight into current landscapes but are less useful in understanding or modelling how sites would have fitted into their surroundings in the past, when conditions were potentially very different.</p>","PeriodicalId":55490,"journal":{"name":"Archaeological Prospection","volume":"30 2","pages":"185-208"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/arp.1885","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47059555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}