Soilscapes and settlements: remote mapping of activity areas in unexcavated prehistoric farmsteads

Abstract

It is excellent to be able to present this latest achievement in the onward march of remote mapping, the art and science of exploring archaeological sites without digging them. Using a particularly graphic case study in Hungary, the author shows that deposits characterised by geophysical and chemical means can reveal their plans and the emphasis of their activity in some detail. This is not only a rapid and economic means of landscape investigation, but offers striking research results over a broad canvas, indicative of the numerous small dispersed settlements that so often escape the attention of the great excavation campaigns.

It's Elemental! A Case Study in the Use of Multi-element Geochemical Analysis as an Aid in Locating Cultural Features at the Foundation Site

“…Archaeologists have since expanded geochemical investigations to include anthropogenic multi-element chemical residue analyses and have identified close correlations between element suites and past occupation activities. Multi-element chemical residue analysis has ultimately proven successful as an archaeological prospection and interpretive tool to detect, delineate, and interpret broad activities within archaeological sites and to differentiate among discrete activity areas (Deetz and Dethlefsen 1963: 242-243;Cook and Heizer 1965;Eidt 1977;Middleton and Price 1996: 673-687;Wells et al 2000: 450;Parnell, Terry, and Nelson 2002;Middleton 2004;Sarris et al 2004;Cook et al 2006;Wilson, Davidson, and Cresser 2008: 412-424;Oonk, Slomp, and Huisman 2009;Salisbury 2012Salisbury , 2013Milek and Roberts 2013: 1,845-1,865).…”

Preliminary environmental historical results to reconstruct prehistoric human-environmental interactions in Eastern Hungary

“…beech, ash, hornbeam) that occupied the slightly elevated and better-drained surface of the levee within the lakeside zone. Combined with archaeological data [18,83], this new environmental data suggests continuous settlement and increasing intensity of land clearance and production along the palaeochannel from the end of the Middle Neolithic. Likewise, the earliest Neolithic farmers in southern Romania [80] and Poland [84] had relatively little effect on the environment prior to ca.…”

“…Csárdaszállás 8 is a larger site, covering approximately 7 ha and containing artifacts from several prehistoric periods, with the primary occupation also dating to the Late Neolithic Tisza culture [16]. Geochemical surveys were carried out in 2007-2008 at these and other small Late Neolithic sites in the Körös region as part of a doctoral dissertation project [17][18][19]. New research at Csárdaszállás began in 2011 with a campaign focusing on understanding the prehistoric environment and the relationship between human activity and environmental changes [15].…”

Evidence of a homestead from the Late Bronze Age at the Ruda site (Northern Poland) based on archaeopedological studies

“…Because of the specific properties of this element, namely, low solubility -and, consequently, low mobility -and its presence in every plant and animal cell, it remains in its place of deposition for hundreds or even thousands of years (Cook and Heizer 1965;Smeck 1973;Hayes and Swift 1978;Stevenson 1985;Scudder et al 1996;Sapek and Sapek 2004). At archaeological sites where it is not possible to conduct regular excavations, the phosphate method has proven to be very effective (in addition to ground-penetrating radar (GPR) or aerial photography), non-invasive and relatively inexpensive (Holliday and Gartner 2007;Salisbury 2012a). Chemical analyses of the soil material, especially the phosphorus content, are used to identify archaeological sites or to designate excavation sites (e.g.…”