There is some press coverage today of new research by a Belgian / UK team using geophysical methods to identify sub-surface irregularities including some quite deep pits. I'm trying to get hold of a copy of the paper, which is behind a paywall. The authors talk about large pits, smaller pits and "natural features" -- and of course there is some speculation in the media about animal trapping pits in the days before Stonehenge was built.
What intrigues me is the question "Could there be stone extraction pits and hollows among the thousands of surface irregularities discovered?" -- but the Abstract gives no clues on this. I'm rather intrigued by semi-automated interpretations and only 66% accuracy, but await further info.
Watch this space..........
==================================
"Novel insights into prehistoric land use at Stonehenge by combining electromagnetic and invasive methods with a semi-automated interpretation scheme."
Philippe De Smedt, Paul Garwood, Henry Chapman, Koen Deforce, Johan De Grave, Daan Hanssens, Dimitri Vandenberghe.
Journal of Archaeological Science
Available online 9 May 2022, 105557
Philippe De Smedt, Paul Garwood, Henry Chapman, Koen Deforce, Johan De Grave, Daan Hanssens, Dimitri Vandenberghe.
Journal of Archaeological Science
Available online 9 May 2022, 105557
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305440322000152?via%3Dihub
Abstract
Geophysical survey methods have led to high-resolution mapping of subsurface remnants of ancient landscapes at continually expanding spatial scales. Yet, particularly when applied across entire archaeological landscapes, spanning hundreds of hectares, resultant datasets provide little direct information about inhabitation, environments or change over time.
Focusing on a 2.5 km2 area around Stonehenge, we show how geophysical soil survey, when combined with targeted sampling and excavation, can enable reliable empirically-grounded identification of complex activity traces. Particular focus lies on anthropogenic dug pits, identification and interpretation of which are vital in European earlier prehistoric archaeology due to their close connection with inhabitation and ceremonial practices. By integrating frequency domain electromagnetic and invasive datasets, and using a semi-automated interpretation scheme, we identified previously unknown concentrations of large pits (with diameters >2.4 m) among several thousand smaller pits and natural features across the Stonehenge landscape. Excavations of a subset of identified features demonstrate that, in this area, our investigative methodology is 66% accurate for identifying large anthropogenic pits. Our results have significant implications for understanding Stonehenge and its landscape setting, revealing elusive forms of Mesolithic to later Bronze Age land use that - even within the world's most intensively researched archaeological landscape - have gone unrecognized until now.
These findings underscore both the crucial role of archaeological excavation as an essential basis for reliable interpretation of geophysical data, as well as the perils of inductive visual interpretation of features’ morphologies and their spatial configuration in non-invasive survey data.
Geophysical survey methods have led to high-resolution mapping of subsurface remnants of ancient landscapes at continually expanding spatial scales. Yet, particularly when applied across entire archaeological landscapes, spanning hundreds of hectares, resultant datasets provide little direct information about inhabitation, environments or change over time.
Focusing on a 2.5 km2 area around Stonehenge, we show how geophysical soil survey, when combined with targeted sampling and excavation, can enable reliable empirically-grounded identification of complex activity traces. Particular focus lies on anthropogenic dug pits, identification and interpretation of which are vital in European earlier prehistoric archaeology due to their close connection with inhabitation and ceremonial practices. By integrating frequency domain electromagnetic and invasive datasets, and using a semi-automated interpretation scheme, we identified previously unknown concentrations of large pits (with diameters >2.4 m) among several thousand smaller pits and natural features across the Stonehenge landscape. Excavations of a subset of identified features demonstrate that, in this area, our investigative methodology is 66% accurate for identifying large anthropogenic pits. Our results have significant implications for understanding Stonehenge and its landscape setting, revealing elusive forms of Mesolithic to later Bronze Age land use that - even within the world's most intensively researched archaeological landscape - have gone unrecognized until now.
These findings underscore both the crucial role of archaeological excavation as an essential basis for reliable interpretation of geophysical data, as well as the perils of inductive visual interpretation of features’ morphologies and their spatial configuration in non-invasive survey data.
4 comments:
Will be intriguing to find out what David Jacques, the archaeologist who led the Blick Mead Mesolithic digs, has to say.Also, at least these researchers are not from the UK and so aren't likely to go in for MPP - style premature ejaculations about smoking guns in pits!
Correction..........., SOME of these researchers are not UK - based. Henry Chapman, for example, is well known in the UK.
And yes, Brian, as you have wondered, are some of these pits the consequences of prehistoric attempts to extract sarsen stone right on the doorstep of their future magnificent creation? David Field and others have mentioned before there are signs of such activity e.g. near where the Visitor Centre stands today.
I have written to the lead author to ask him about precisely this point. Let's see how he replies..........
Post a Comment