Reconstruction of a Palaeosurface and Archaeological Site Location in an Anthropogenic Drift Sand Area

Abstract

Knowledge of the position of archaeological remains in the surface relief provides important basic information for archaeological survey design and interpretation. Geomorphological processes in (pre)history may have resulted in a modification of the local relief around archaeological sites, especially in areas that are prone to sediment erosion and relocation, such as sheet sand and dune landscapes. In this study, we reconstructed and analysed the palaeorelief of an archaeological excavation site in an inland dune area in southern Brandenburg, Germany. The remains of two Mesolithic sites were documented in the archaeological excavations and found to be associated with a buried soil horizon. To gather information on the relief of the buried soil surface, we used a combination of sedimentological and pedological profile descriptions along archaeological survey trenches and geophysical prospection with ground penetrating radar supplemented with microdrone photography and photogrammetry, global positioning system (GPS) surveys, and analysis of LiDAR‐based elevation models. A digital elevation model of the buried surface was generated and analysed using a geographical information system (GIS). A comparison of the palaeosurface model with the recent surface elevation model shows that sand remobilization resulted in a considerable reshaping of the relief. Further, an analysis of the buried surface model shows that the relief position of the two archaeological sites in the study area was considerably more prominent in relation to the corresponding buried soil surface than in relation to the recent surface morphology. The results affirm the significance of Holocene sediment relocation for the local surface morphology and the importance of considering such relief modifications in archaeological surveys. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Palaeosols and their cover sediments of a glacial landscape in northern central Europe: Spatial distribution, pedostratigraphy and evidence on landscape evolution

“…Dotterweich, 2008;Dreibrodt et al, 2010;Kołodyńska-Gawrysiak, 2019), a spatial estimation of buried land surfaces lacks. Even when expanding the spatial and temporal focus, most studies have focused on single sites (pedon scale), rarely providing numbers on the geometry of the buried soil storey except for a few available data from aeolian and nearcoastal fluvial landscapes in Germany, Poland and The Netherlands (Kaiser et al, 2006;Jankowski, 2012;van Mourik et al, 2012;Sevink et al, 2013;Missiaen et al, 2015;Verhegge et al, 2016;Schneider et al, 2017). These studies document contiguous buried soil surfaces in a spatial range from 0.02 to 3.4 km 2 .…”

“…Existing palaeosol maps are restricted to very local archaeological and palaeoecological sites (e.g. Chapman et al, 2009;van Mourik et al, 2012;Sevink et al, 2013;Schneider et al, 2017;van der Kroef et al, 2019). Thus, information about landscape-scale distribution of palaeosols and their spatially variable properties is rare.…”

Shaping pre-modern digital terrain models: The former topography at Charlemagne’s canal construction site

“…The spatial distribution of data points is critical. Geophysical methods can generate many spatially well-distributed data points [ 11 , 49 , 9 ]. The resolution and precision of the data depend on the sedimentary contrasts of the palaeo-surface and the overlaying sediments [ 50 ].…”

“…In recent years, there have been several approaches to reconstruct pre-modern terrain based on the interpolation of large datasets from drillings, archaeological excavations, and outcrops [ 9 , 10 ]. Other studies combine archaeological excavation data and geophysical data to interpolate detected pre-modern surface heights [ 11 – 13 ]. Both approaches are inductive methods based on field data interpolation and elaborate (geo-)archaeological and geophysical fieldwork, and post-processing.…”

Cone penetration testing for extensive mapping of deeply buried Late Glacial coversand landscape paleotopography

“…Alternatively, non‐invasive (near‐surface) geophysical survey is used increasingly in combination with validation through invasive methods (Bates, Bates, & Whittaker, 2007; Verhegge, Missiaen, & Crombé, 2016). However, the success of ground penetrating radar in mapping coversand paleosols (Chapman, Adcock, & Gater, 2009; Schneider, Hirsch, Wechler, Raab, & Raab, 2017) is hampered by a clayey topsoil and shallow groundwater in the study region. Furthermore, electromagnetic induction‐ or electrical resistance survey (e.g, Verhegge, Missiaen, et al 2016; Verhegge, Saey, Van Meirvenne, Missiaen, & Crombé, 2016) is ineffective, because the thin Late Glacial paleosurfaces within the coversand are buried too deep below complex lithostratigraphic Holocene floodplain sequences.…”