Ground-based archaeological prospection: Case studies from Greece

Abstract

Nikos Papadopoulos, Gregory Tsokas, Apostolos Sarris, Panagiotis Tsourlos and George Vargemezis assess the preservation of standing monuments and ancient water management facilities. Archaeological prospection or archaeogeophysics includes the diverse geophysical methods employed either in planned excavations to guide the archaeological research in advance of and during the excavation process or in salvage excavations to provide a rapid assessment during the development of infrastructure in urban or rural environments. On a more general basis, these techniques are also applicable to support regional archaeological surveys by locating areas of archaeological interest and contributing to the settlement pattern analysis (Sarris and Jones, 2000). Unlike the destructive nature of the archaeological excavations, geophysical prospection techniques are non-invasive, providing at the same time a rapid reconnaissance of a site without disturbing the ground or the monuments themselves. The success or the failure of these techniques strongly depends on the contrasting physical properties that exist between the archaeological buried targets and the hosting material.