Un accordance with archaeological programmes several geophysical investigation campaigns were conducted at the Roman site of Munigua (Province of Seville, Spain). First, building structures such as the city wall and production sites extra muro were investigated by means of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) measurements. A new method is presented, ZODIAC, which enables virtual or physical reconstruction of archaeological features in the ground; ZODIAC uses the original geophysical data and avoids the speculative aspect of previous reconstruction techniques. Second, two geophysical survey campaigns on Roman archaeo-metallurgical remainswere undertaken at Munigua in November 2003 and April 2005.Methodsofcomplexresistivity wereused foranon-destructive surveyon slag heaps.The slag heaps are well-defined by induced polarization effects from the bedrock with a phase angle of more than 30 mrad. The extension and depth of the slag heaps are estimated using twodimensional and three-dimensional images of resistivity r and phase angle w. The results fulfilled all expectations and for the first time allow an estimation of the amount of processed metal in Munigua.
The mountainous inland of northern Calabria (Southern Italy) is known for its sparse prehistoric human occupation. Nevertheless, a thorough multidisciplinary approach of field walking, geophysical survey and invasive research led to the discovery of a major archaeological archive. This archive concerns a rich multi-phased dump, spanning about 3000 years (Late Neolithic to Late Imperial Roman Age) and holding two Somma-Vesuvius tephra. Of these, the younger is a distinct layer of juvenile tephra from the Pompeii eruption, while the older concerns reworked tephra from the Bronze Age AP2 eruption (ca. 1700 cal. yr BP). The large dump contains abundant ceramics, faunal remains and charcoal, and most probably originated through long-continued deposition of waste in a former gully like system of depressions. This resulted in an inversed, mound-like relief, whose anthropogenic origin had not been recognized in earlier research. The tephras were found to be important markers that support the reconstruction of the occupational history of the site. The sequence of occupational phases is very similar to that observed in a recent palaeoecological study from nearby situated former lakes (Lago Forano/Fontana Manca). This suggests that this sequence reflects the more regional occupational history of Calabria, which goes back to ca. 3000 BC. Attention is paid to the potential link between this history and Holocene climatic phases, for which no indication was found. The history deviates strongly from histories deduced from the few, but major palaeorecords elsewhere in the inlands of Southern Italy (Lago Grande di Monticchio and Lago Trifoglietti). We conclude that major regional variation occurred in prehistoric land use and its impacts on the vegetation cover of Southern Italy, and studies of additional palaeoarchives are needed to unravel this complex history. Finally, shortcomings of archaeological predictive models are discussed and the advantages of truly integrated multidisciplinary research.
The large-scale magnetometer prospection conducted in 2021 south of the al-Najaf International Airport, Iraq, reveals the complex settlement structure of the late Antique and early Islamic site of al-Ḥīra. The manual archaeo-geophysical interpretation resulted in 16 classes and the three most relevant archaeological classes will serve as a baseline for a (semi-) automated classification workflow.
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