Theme:
3. Sustainable archaeology and heritage in an unsustainable world
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Building up the Momentum in Archaeo-Geophysics: The “Soil Science & Archaeo-Geophysics Alliance" (COST Action SAGA-CA17131)
Content:
Taking into account the current deluge of societal challenges (climate change, conflict, economic crisis, inter alia) the development of field solutions and best practice to record archaeological assets in a more sustainable manner (i.e. using less invasive, rapid and cost-effective approaches) is an obvious priority in cultural heritage management. In this context, the employment of geophysical techniques has become a powerful approach in archaeological discovery, characterisation and monitoring. In the last decade, geophysical methods have developed rapidly, based on phenomenal breakthroughs in technology. Now, large multi-array instruments can be vehicle towed or more compact sensors mounted on robotised vehicles. This has enabled ever faster and higher-resolution geophysical characterisation of larger areas, increasing the efficiency of subsurface archaeological investigations and allowed the exploration of what were, previously, challenging or inaccessible sites.
This exciting technological momentum calls for further progress in field method optimisation and data interpretation solutions to ensure a sustainable development of the discipline of archaeo-geophysics. How efficiently can we analyse, interpret and classify massive geophysical datasets (Big geodata)? How can we improve data integration generated by multi-variate approaches? Which strategies can we follow to provide more confident and archaeologically meaningful interpretations of geophysical datasets? How can we optimise the methodologies in terms of the environmental conditions? These are some of the challenges that archaeo-geophysics is currently facing.
This session is organised by COST Action SAGA, an international research network bringing together archaeologists, geophysicists and soil scientists to advance geophysical data interpretation for archaeological studies. SAGA invites paper proposals on reflective or case-study-based work relating to the above-mentioned challenges and these related topics:
-Combined approached using geophysics and soil science to study archaeological sites/landscapes beyond bare prospection (i.e. present/absence of features)
-Geophysical characterisation or monitoring of archaeological sites in risk
-Big/multi-variated/difficult data: solutions for modelling, analysis and interpretation
Keywords:
archaeological geophysics, soil science in archaeology, non-destructive methods in cultural heritage management, endangered archaeology, geoarchaeology, COST Action SAGA (CA17131)
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Carmen Cuenca-Garcia (Norway) 1
Co-organisers:
Apostolos Sarris (Greece) 2
Philippe De Smedt (Belgium) 3
Jan Horak (Czech Republic) 4
Affiliations:
1. Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
2. Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas
3. Ghent University
4. Czech University of Life Sciences
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