Archaeological Fieldwork

Dear all,

The Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR) has rescheduled its education and research programme for 2020/21. The Institute offers (Research)Master and PhD student courses, as well as fellowships, research stays and internships at all levels.
In autumn 2020, students can discover ancient hill-forts and other highland sites in the Apennines by signing up for the Practicum Exploring Mountain Society. Doing field work with an international team, students acquire various field and (digital) lab methodologies.
The Practicum runs from 14 September to 4 October, with a minimum stay of 2 weeks (3 ECTS).
Deadline for applications: 1 July 2020.
See https://www.knir.it/nl/tile/exploring-mountain-society-2020/ and the enclosed flyer.

The use of large-scale, high-resolution ground-penetrating radar surveys has increasingly become a part of Norwegian cultural heritage management as a complementary method to trial trenching surveys to detect and delineate archaeological sites. The aim of this article is to collect, interpret and compare large-scale, high-resolution ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey data with results from trial trenching and subsequent large-scale excavations, and to extract descriptive and spatial statistics on detection rates and precision for both evaluation methods. This, in turn, is used to assess the advantages and disadvantages of both conventional, intrusive methods and large-scale GPR surveys. Neither method proved to be flawless, and while the trial trenching had a better overall detection rate, organic and charcoal rich features were nearly just as easily detected by both methods. Similarly, the spatial representability was similar, even though the total detection rates were lower with the GPR. This can be used as an argument in advance of integrating full-coverage GPR results into a site evaluation scheme, preferably in combination with other methods. Overall, these analyses have highlighted drawbacks and possibilities in both methods that are important contributions in understanding how to use them and integrate them in future site evaluations.

The data presented here are the results of recent archaeological fieldwork carried out to investigate the societal and cultural developments that took place in South Asia during the mid-first millennium CE. These centuries are characterised as a Golden Age in India. During this time we see the appearance of many of the commonly perceived hallmarks of 'Indian' society, such as: the emergence of Hindu temple institutions [6, 58]; the spread and adoption of various new forms of government and administration across the subcontinent with Sanskrit as the courtly language [2, 14, 37]; and a flourishing of artistic and scientific endeavour evident in various media [15, 32, 51, 56]. These developments are usually associated with the growth of the Gupta Empire in North India during the fourth century CE [31, 57]. Our archaeological understanding of these developments is problematic for a number of reasons [17, 26]. The study of this and all subsequent phases of South Asia's past are dominated by text-based histories-a feature of scholarship that affects not only what is studied, but how those sources are studied. Research questions tend to be oriented towards historical concerns with the development of kingdoms and states [13, 25], the spread of religious institutions [3, 5] and socioeconomic systems [42, 48]. Within this general thrust of enquiry, archaeology tends to contribute only in terms of providing archaeological evidence for the corroboration or contradiction of those theories and ideas [17, 18]. Further complicating the situation is the fact that most archaeologists working in South Asia tend to focus on earlier periods , where there are fewer or no textual sources, and they are less constrained by historical paradigms [7]. As a result, most of the archaeological data that we have for the mid-first millennium come not from the investigation of that period, but are remains found by happenstance through the excavation of sites with earlier foundations. Within this research context, one of the richest strands of historical enquiry rests on the study of a series of inscriptions carved on copper plates that are found throughout South Asia from the fourth century CE onwards. These inscriptions record royal grants of land to (usually) Hindu temple institutions [12, 33]. They are the largest textual corpus for the period, and have been used as evidence for: the nature of the relationships between kings and other political , administrative and religious institutions; changing power relations; charting the spread of new administrative practices, land rights and agricultural production. However, until recently these inscriptions were not considered as material entities, and none had been located on the ground [19]. In most cases, their readings and interpretations continue to be made with reference to wider theoretical models rather than the material, textual or visual evidence from the areas in which they were made, used and found. Presented here are the data collected during regional surveys of Vidarbha, India, which were collected to reconstruct the societal and cultural changes that took place in this region during the mid-first millennium CE. Following an overview of the data and their research context, we describe the methods that were used to collect, process and analyse them. This is accompanied by a critical assessment of the factors that constrained the survey and our results. The dataset is then described in detail, with a thorough account of each data group and how they are arranged, presented and archived. Finally, we discuss how these data can be reused in the continued archaeological study of this region, and comparative studies of site distributions.

The Römisch-Germanische Kommission (RGK), the research institute of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in Frankfurt has initiated countless new research methods since its foundation almost 120 years ago. The Technical Department established in 2010 was mainly engaged in archaeophysical surveys conducted over large areas and geomagnetic prospection involving the documentation of the variations in an area's magnetic field, a routine practice by then. Since then, its activities have expanded to include various non-invasive or minimally invasive analytical procedures for the examination of archaeological finds. Owing to experimentation with, and testing of, various new methods, our team has grown into a genuine competence centre during the past few years, an achievement that was fully recognized in 2019, when the department was renamed Department of Survey and Excavation Methodology (Referat für Prospek-tions-und Grabungsmethodik). In addition to our own excavations, field projects and archaeometric analyses, our centre is also involved in the research projects of our partners and we assist, to the best of our abilities, our external colleagues. Given the many diverse research methods utilising the new equipment of the RGK, in the following we offer an overview of our activities and the employed methods and procedures.

"Revelation" is an English Heritage project to provide a coherent digital information system that will make the capture, analysis and dissemination of Historic Environment research faster and more effective. Stage 1, described here, was a comprehensive review of information systems and work practice at the Centre for Archaeology in the context of the broader profession. This report constitutes an IS-related business analysis of the CfA to assess the scope of the requirement. The aim of this stage has been to define how we use data throughout the life of an archaeological project so that, in the next phase of Revelation, we can design and build an archaeological information system that will be used by all the CfA. The Methods section covers the main strands of research and the project working practice more generally. The Results section relates to the main reviews of the project. A discussion of issues arising from the research and not directly covered in the reports follows. The Conclusions highlight key findings and directions for future work. The Recommendations section is directed towards five audiences: EH Senior Management, CfA Management Group, CfA Staff, Systems Development, and the Sector.