TY - GEN

T1 - Status for the development of acoustic mapping of submerged Stone Age sites

AU - Grøn, Ole

AU - Boldreel, Lars Ole

AU - Hermand, Jean-Pierre

AU - Rasmussen, Hugo

AU - Dell'Anno, Antonio

AU - Cvikel , Debbie

AU - Galili , Ehud

AU - Madsen, Bo

AU - Nørmark, Egon

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - The development of an acoustic system for costeffectivemapping of submerged Stone Age sites located on, andembedded in, the sea floor, reported briefly at the 2nd RIOAcoustics Symposium (Grøn et al. 2016), has progressedsignificantly since then. A number of experiments and surveyresults now demonstrate that it is possible to obtain clear andsignificant acoustic responses from flint tools and debitage1produced by humans, whereas naturally-cracked pieces of flint ofsimilar shapes and dimensions do not produce equivalentresponses. It has also been demonstrated that debitage respondsacoustically even when embedded within sea-floor sediments. Sofar, responses have been obtained from the cultural layers ofStone Age settlements containing large amounts debitage coveredby at least one metre of sediment. It is now important to developthe method further, so it is also effective for smaller amounts ofdebitage from all siliceous materials used by humans to producedebitage, and at maximum depths in the sediment. There shouldalso be no water-depth limitation when operating the system.Since Stone Age sites can be expected to be found down toapproximately í140 m below present sea level (the lowest glacialsea level), the system will support the practical implementation ofUNESCO’s 2001 convention for underwater cultural heritage,which also covers international waters [1]. The existing types ofpredictive modelling, based on the bathymetry of former exposedand inhabited surfaces, are very imprecise and expensive, takinginto account the costs of precise physical mapping of the potentialsites by coring.

AB - The development of an acoustic system for costeffectivemapping of submerged Stone Age sites located on, andembedded in, the sea floor, reported briefly at the 2nd RIOAcoustics Symposium (Grøn et al. 2016), has progressedsignificantly since then. A number of experiments and surveyresults now demonstrate that it is possible to obtain clear andsignificant acoustic responses from flint tools and debitage1produced by humans, whereas naturally-cracked pieces of flint ofsimilar shapes and dimensions do not produce equivalentresponses. It has also been demonstrated that debitage respondsacoustically even when embedded within sea-floor sediments. Sofar, responses have been obtained from the cultural layers ofStone Age settlements containing large amounts debitage coveredby at least one metre of sediment. It is now important to developthe method further, so it is also effective for smaller amounts ofdebitage from all siliceous materials used by humans to producedebitage, and at maximum depths in the sediment. There shouldalso be no water-depth limitation when operating the system.Since Stone Age sites can be expected to be found down toapproximately í140 m below present sea level (the lowest glacialsea level), the system will support the practical implementation ofUNESCO’s 2001 convention for underwater cultural heritage,which also covers international waters [1]. The existing types ofpredictive modelling, based on the bathymetry of former exposedand inhabited surfaces, are very imprecise and expensive, takinginto account the costs of precise physical mapping of the potentialsites by coring.

U2 - 10.1109/RIOAcoustics.2017.8349747

DO - 10.1109/RIOAcoustics.2017.8349747

M3 - Conference article

JO - IEEE Xplore Digital Library

JF - IEEE Xplore Digital Library

ER -