engleski

Modeling Sediment Depth through High Resolution Earth Resistance Tomography

Earth Resistance Tomography (ERT) has the capacity to model sediment depths to bedrock. However, its use at archaeology cave site investigations has been limited though it has the potential to inform the archaeological excavation planning process by producing sediment depth estimates. A GeoScan RM85 earth resistance meter was utilized for all surveys in this study which is significant given it is an instrument common to near-surface archaeological investigations as opposed to the dedicated ERT systems typical of geology remote sensing surveys or groundwater testing. A pole-pole array was used in each of these surveys after early testing at the Bukovac Cave site near Lokve proved the data collection for this array worked well in caves as compared to the more common Wenner and Schlumberger arrays with a GeoScan instrument. Development of the pole-pole ERT survey methodology at cave sites in Croatia continued in 2014 and 2015 at the Velika Pećina near Kličevica and Romuald’s Cave sites. Though these surveys proved unsuccessful concerning the reliability of the sediment depth estimates as compared to the ground-truthing from traditional excavations, much information was gained in about field methodology. In 2017, the Romuald’s Cave site in Istria was again surveyed though field methodology was modified to a very high density survey design (using 0.1 m probe spacing instead of the 0.5 m probe spacing from earlier surveys). The high data density survey produced reliable results as compared to observed sediment depth from excavations within the cave. The authors present the development of their field methodology with the ERT technique using common archaeological geophysics equipment which has produced reliable results in recent years. Primarily, the method employed with the ERT technique involves very high-density surveys within the (often) limited space available inside Paleolithic cave sites.

Earth Resistance Tomography ; Paleolithic ; Caves ; Croatia

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