10th September 2013, 01:11 PM
Dinosaur Wrote:You'd be amazed how many times we've dug stuff on the assumption from geophysics that it was one thing, but then found it was something completely different. And very, very often trenching has to be undertaken in order to characterise whatever the geofizz has picked up - it's amazing how many ways land- and French-drains can reveal themselves via magnetometer for instance, whilst, in the case of a job I did earlier this year, pretending to be elements of a RB enclosure system...got 'em figured now, but it took 57 50mx2m trenches to resolve things and understand the survey data...I wouldn't be too amazed. There's a lot of 'variability' in geophysical surveys depending in the experience, qualifications and skill of the geophysicist.
Dinosaur Wrote:Higher resolution magnetometry is, indeed, the way to go, and I'm sure one day commercial archaeology will grit its teeth and give it a go, but in the meantime skellies and Neolithic pits will have to be found by skill and Mark 1 eyeball
You weren't the only one needing a hand back into your chair after reading Unit's comment
We have gritted our teeth and are regularly using a 6 sensor system with the sensors spaced 0.5 m apart and readings collected every 0.1 m to 0.2 m. Very impressive data if I do say so myself and no more expensive than a traditional hand-held survey. For the sake of fairness I should add that Archaeophysica also use a high resolution system and have been for some time.