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Abstract

MSE, in cooperation with the Department of Defense (DOD) United States Army Construction<br>Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL), Geoscan Research/Archaeo-Physics, and Montana Tech of<br>the University of Montana, investigated the applicability of both a towed array of geophones acquiring<br>diving wave seismic tomography data and a handheld thermal imager to collect data for archaeological<br>investigations. Currently, neither archaeologists nor geophysicists use these techniques very often for<br>archaeology. The driver for this work was the need to reduce the cost and improve the reliability of<br>traditional archaeological strategies widely used to assess the significance of the thousands of sites<br>located on Department of Defense managed lands.<br>Field tests were conducted at two locations: an 18th century mission in California and Cahokia,<br>the largest and most complex late prehistoric mound site in the U.S. The tests compared the seismic<br>results and thermal sensor output to results from electrical resistivity, magnetic field gradiometry, and<br>ground penetrating radar. The seismic technique was effective at locating buried historic era<br>foundations; however, better areal coverage would improve the results. This was possible because the<br>towed geophone array provides rapid high-density data acquisition. Thermal imaging was problematic<br>due to weather conditions, but the results suggested that with further refinement, it might be useful for<br>archaeology.

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/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609-pdb.186.ARC05
2004-02-22
2024-03-28
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