Archaeology Technology

[woodsorrel]

Hi Everyone!

I remember watching an episode of Ray Mears' "Wild Food" where they visited an archaeological site. The graduate students were walking along with an apparatus looking for underground "anomalies". They referred to this data as geophysics.

I always wondered what this was all about. What technology were they using? How did it help them with their work?

I visited an archaeological site a couple of weeks ago where the researchers are using similar techniques. It turns out they are using remote sensing technology. Once they explained everything (using short words and speaking slowly) it all "clicked" for me.

Here is a write-up in case anyone is curious about these techniques:


Archaeology Technology


Regards,

- Woodsorrel

 

[Dave Budd]

i studied archaeology at uni many years ago and we had magnetometry, magnetic suseptbilty (mag.sus.) and resistivity at our disposal any time. Ground penetrating radar was way too pricey or most archaeological units to use at the time.

Amusingly, during my second degree we had a module entitled "advanced geophysical and geochemical prospection" because we had all studied geophysics before. This module also included dowsing!

 

[British Red]

Here is a write-up in case anyone is curious about these techniques:


Archaeology Technology

Can you not simply post these things directly on this site please rather than directing us to your own site?

Thanks

 

[boatman]

Do not forget probably the oldest remote sensing technology, that of aerial photography and the sighting of crop marks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_photography

 

[Dave Budd]

very true. I had access to some beautiful photos (in stereo, with two viewers!) taken by the Royal Flying Corps

 

[woodsorrel]

... This module also included dowsing!

OK, I can't resist asking. Does dowsing work?

- Woodsorrel

 

[woodsorrel]

Do not forget probably the oldest remote sensing technology, that of aerial photography and the sighting of crop marks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_photography

What makes some of the remote sensing techniques fascinating is that they look at features under the ground's surface. I wonder how aerial photography will evolve with the increasing availability of high-res satellite imagery?

- Woodsorrel

 

[boatman]

Dowsing is interesting. I wonder if it is a way of concentrating the mind to assimilate all the clues available. For example, when we were going onto main drainage I dowsed for where the junction should be from the sewer pipe to the new main village drain. Got it correct but could simply have worked it out. However, did dowse an underground stream once. Not sure I have any faith in dowsing for underground structures though, again, it could be the feel of the texture of grass underfoot and subtle changes in level that gave clues to what was beneath.

 

[Dave Budd]

aha, good question. It does reveal some things for some people, whether it would ever be reliable enough to be considered that it works is debatable.

My lecturer (Paul Cheetham), used to go along to dowsing meetings and heckle, then they invited him to have a go and was stumped when it worked. In the lecture that covered the technique/phenomenon he had a pair of rods and walked from one side of the class room to the other and back again. As he passed the desk at the front, the rods crossed over and back again. Then he went for a coffee and let us have a go, there were 15 of us in the class. Some folk found that nothing happened, others got a twitch if the rods and others they couldn't keep from tipping their wrists (which means that they would get a 'false positive', or cheating). A few of us, myself included had more success and the rods crossed as I walked past each of the larger metal ends of the bench and then again as I stepped over an electric cable. I would guess that if it were picking things up then it would be the metal in the legs and wire, but as suggested above it could just be a subconscious indicator.

However. There is a famous book called 'Dowsing in Church Archaeology', in which a churchyard was surveyed by dowsers and then various geophysical methods. When the site was then excavated, revealing what was actually there, the dowsing had compiled a more complete and accurate map of the graves than the geophysics. I guess that there could be some very very subtle surface indicators that the dowser was picking up on visually and by feel, but i very much doubt it.

We also touched on scrying. I have played with that myself over the years mostly to find things that I have misplaced, in which case it could just be jogging my memory via subconscious triggers amplifying to the swinging pendulum that I'm scrying with. BUT, I also did a blind experiment in a sand filled riding paddock. I had a friend bury a load of objects and I then looked for them with scrying and dowsing. I found almost all of them, so very much like the graveyard. What I was picking up on is anybody's guess, but I sure couldn't see or feel things like tea cups and metal trays under a few inches of sand.


Even if it is a load of old cobblers, big oil and water companies believe enough to employ dowsers to prospect for them

 

[Wayland]

I've had a go at dowsing on and archaeological site as well with interesting results.

I started out as a sceptic but ended up being very curious.

What I found could perhaps have been worked out logically, but I was certainly unconscious of doing so. Interesting...

 

[woodsorrel]

It is interesting that a bushcraft discussion can cover both satellite sensing and dowsing.

boatman's comment caught my attention when he wondered if dowsing was simply a means of "concentrating the mind to assimilate all the clues available". There are several primitive skills instructors who claim that each of us has the innate capability to be much more sensitive to our natural environment. We just don't use these capabilities in modern life, so they atrophy.

- Woodsorrel

 

[The Ratcatcher]

Studies carried out during the Vietnam War by the U.S.Army showed that dowsing was a very effective technique for locating Vietcong tunnel systems, so much so that a school of dowsing was established, to train military search teams in the art/skill of dowsing. The method favoured by the U.S.Army was the use of L-rods, as these are less affected by wind etc. One of the surprising results of the research was that about 95% of people tested could be trained to dowse, even if they had never tried before.

The research was continued under the control of the so-called "Stargate" project, a joint military/ CIA programme set up to investigate alternative methods of gathering intelligence, which also included research into man's 'forgotten' prehistoric instincts. During the same period, the Soviet Union also had a sinilar programme. Most of the findings of both programmes remain classified, but some has been released, and seems to confirm the theory that we have within us a whole range of dormant 'senses'.

Alan.

 

[Tengu]

Yes, we covered it too.

No evidence for it, but you are right, its got some interesting results, and oil companies use it.