The contribution of geophysics in the location of prehistoric settlements in Greece

Abstract

Recent maturity in human sense has extended the responsibility of national heritage bodies including extensive areas of archaeological and paleo-environmental landscapes, mostly unmapped from an archaeological perspective. In this respect, in an increasingly scientific age, geophysical prospection of one kind or another is widely regarded as part of the archaeological process, as integral to the interpretation of archaeological sites and landscapes as it is essential to the detection of archaeological features. In many respects this was what has been attempted at the Asea, the Palamari (Skyros) and Helike Prehistoric sites in Greece of which met first performance of a diversity geophysical prospection techniques as part of research program with an intendancy of fulfilling a lack of consideration of the integration of geophysical prospection data within larger interpretative frameworks, such as creating 3D images, in order to many archaeologists can understand all the technical output of archeo-geophysical research and thereby become aware of potential applications. The sites were intensively surveyed using a variety of equipment, some standard, some novel, and the results compared and integrated within a larger Prehistoric archaeological framework along with the application of traditional and improved technologies for subsurface investigation. Generally, most archaeological targets were registered with all methods used. The electrical resistance RM4 Twin-probe method and created data color plots were found to be successful in tracing the extent and distribution of shallow buried single level Prehistoric features, whilst, Multi-electrode resistivity tomography technique has been particularly proved to be a powerful technique in the study of Prehistoric sites. A number of processing techniques, such as inverse model pseudo-sections and produced depth slices of acquired resistivity data have delineated with a remarkable accuracy the dimensions and burial depths of Prehistoric entities even if they were in a multi-stratigraphy arrangement. In the same way, the Ground Penetrating Radar survey has confirmed the existence of features of interest regarding their dimensions and depth using time-slices technique. Although its usage was limited due to the sites’s soil clay content and high water table level. A strong correlation between GPR and MRT data has been proved, and GPR has been advocated as a reconnaissance and alternative tool in the geophysical prospection of Prehistoric settlements in Greece. The location of sites can be predicted using the GIS system by using information about known sites and then looking for areas that have matching characteristics. A cooperative work to compile all geophysical data so far have been acquired from variety of archaeological sites in Greece, and producing an information data storage file concerning these site’s locations and obtained geophysical results using GIS technique has been emphasized for future research.