TY - GEN

T1 - Seismic mapping of archaeological pole structures embedded in sea-floor sediments

AU - Grøn, Ole

AU - Boldreel, Lars Ole

AU - Cvikel, Debbie

AU - Galili , Ehud

AU - Hermand, Jean-Pierre Hermand

AU - Nørmark, Egon

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - Sub-bottom systems able to distinguish poles lessthan 10 cm in diameter embedded in the sea-floor sediments havebeen used since 1994 to map submerged archaeological polestructures, such as harbours and defensive barrages intended toprotect against naval attacks, located in relatively shallow water.This approach has proved its worth in providing fast and cheaplarge-scale information about the horizontal configurations ofsuch structures, making it possible to distinguish and targetzones that, with excavation, can elucidate central archaeologicalproblems. For instance, this method has permitted theidentification of repeated repair phases in large-scaleconstructions, which would have been extremely time-consumingand much more expensive to distinguish and map in theconventional way, with an excavation carried out by divers. Aprecondition for success is precise positioning of the recordedfeatures, allowing a diver subsequently to be directed to themwith a real precision (not a statistical one) of a few decimetres.This paper presents some examples of the application of thistechnique from several central archaeological sites dating fromthe Iron Age, Viking Age and the Medieval period, such as theharbours at Haithabu, Germany, and Vordingborg andJungshoved, Denmark, as well as barrages against naval attacklocated in Haderslev Fjord, Kerteminde Fjord and JungshovedVig, Denmark. It discusses cost-effective verification strategies,including collection of samples for radiocarbon dating,dendrochronological dating etc. The science explaining how thepoles can be distinguished acoustically is also discussed.

AB - Sub-bottom systems able to distinguish poles lessthan 10 cm in diameter embedded in the sea-floor sediments havebeen used since 1994 to map submerged archaeological polestructures, such as harbours and defensive barrages intended toprotect against naval attacks, located in relatively shallow water.This approach has proved its worth in providing fast and cheaplarge-scale information about the horizontal configurations ofsuch structures, making it possible to distinguish and targetzones that, with excavation, can elucidate central archaeologicalproblems. For instance, this method has permitted theidentification of repeated repair phases in large-scaleconstructions, which would have been extremely time-consumingand much more expensive to distinguish and map in theconventional way, with an excavation carried out by divers. Aprecondition for success is precise positioning of the recordedfeatures, allowing a diver subsequently to be directed to themwith a real precision (not a statistical one) of a few decimetres.This paper presents some examples of the application of thistechnique from several central archaeological sites dating fromthe Iron Age, Viking Age and the Medieval period, such as theharbours at Haithabu, Germany, and Vordingborg andJungshoved, Denmark, as well as barrages against naval attacklocated in Haderslev Fjord, Kerteminde Fjord and JungshovedVig, Denmark. It discusses cost-effective verification strategies,including collection of samples for radiocarbon dating,dendrochronological dating etc. The science explaining how thepoles can be distinguished acoustically is also discussed.

U2 - 10.1109/RIOAcoustics.2017.8349748

DO - 10.1109/RIOAcoustics.2017.8349748

M3 - Conference article

JO - IEEE Xplore Digital Library

JF - IEEE Xplore Digital Library

ER -