Soil magnetism, an approach for examining archeological landscapes

Abstract

To investigate archaeological landscapes and the extent to which humans have influenced them, we have developed an innovative approach that employs complementary geophysical methods drawn from the fields of exploration geophysics and soil magnetism. Integrating soil magnetic techniques with exploration surveys and more standard archaeological procedures (i.e., topographic mapping, excavation, coring, and soil-chemical studies) at the Cahokia Mounds site has helped us to better understand the formation of this premier North American mound center and has also demonstrated a scientific methodology of great potential for subsurface investigations of archaeological terrains.