Interpreting Ground-penetrating Radar for Archaeology

The potential of integrated GPR survey and aerial photographic analysis of historic urban areas: A case study and digital reconstruction of a Late Roman villa in Durrës (Albania)

“…However, some factors such as variations in the complexity of the sites themselves and ground surfaces limit the efficacy of these methods and the stratigraphy of an archaeological site may be too complex to be reconstructed using existing techniques (McCann, 1995;Leucci, 2002;Conyers, 2012Conyers, , 2013. This is especially true for areas where human settlements have existed in the same location for centuries, which is common in urban areas or stratified settlements on what become artificial hills.…”

“…This is why, apart from specific investigations over limited areas that are conducted by civil engineers using techniques such as tomography to identify pillars and other foundation, it is often difficult to apply archaeological geophysics in urban areas (Conyers, 2012).…”

“…Urban settings are one of the most challenging areas for near-surface geophysical mapping of archaeology and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is one of the most appropriate methods for such environments since it transmits energy into the ground with only minor interference from surrounding cultural materials (Conyers, 2013). Archaeological prospecting using GPR has been used widely and successfully applied in a number of ways including the: i) search for graves, burial sites, or human remains; ii) detection of buried foundations, walls, floors and other housing structures, and sometimes, man-made objects and; iii) discovery of ancient villages buried by volcanic eruptions (Malagodi et al, 1996;Conyers and Goodman, 1997;Leucci, 2002;Leucci and Negri, 2006;Leucci, 2006;Conyers, 2012Conyers, , 2013Leucci et al, 2014).…”

“…Archaeological prospecting using GPR has been used widely and successfully applied in a number of ways including the: i) search for graves, burial sites, or human remains; ii) detection of buried foundations, walls, floors and other housing structures, and sometimes, man-made objects and; iii) discovery of ancient villages buried by volcanic eruptions (Malagodi et al, 1996;Conyers and Goodman, 1997;Leucci, 2002;Leucci and Negri, 2006;Leucci, 2006;Conyers, 2012Conyers, , 2013Leucci et al, 2014). When focused three-dimensional data captured by GPR are combined with the results of aerial and satellite remote sensing analysis, this provides a robust method for locating areas that are likely to contain archaeological sites and is especially powerful in urban contexts The capture and integration of these multi-method datasets, processed using ever more sophisticated software, is a relatively new advance in urban archaeology, which has significant potential (Leucci, 2006).…”

GPR Analysis of Water Content in Concrete Specimen - Laboratory Test

“…GPR has been widely applied to many areas that are extensively described in different and previous documents (e.g., Jol, 2009;Conyers, 2013). However, most of the usual applications are based on the analysis of the two-way travel times, and other characteristics of the radar signal are not or only slightly analyzed.…”