INVEIITIGATION

Martin Carver

Routledge
Tayioi &Frincis croup

LONDON AND NEW YORK

 G SITE SURVEY

Looking at sites

"Site" is one of those words archaeologists like to argue about. For some a site is a
real place in the past where people lived or buried their dead. For others, that is
potentially true of everywhere and a "site" is simply the place where archaeologists
are working at the moment. Thus, when a cluster of pottery in a field is said to be
a "site", the implication is that this cluster marks the location of an ancient village.
But when archaeologists say "When you are next in town come and visit my site"
they mean "the place I am working". as in a building site. Just to be annoying. in this
chapter I am using the word in a third sense - that is. "an area of ground in need of
investigation". It may well turn into a site in the sense of ancient site, and I will
probably be working there, but at different parts on different days.
Site survey is simply landscape survey on a smaller scale: the area is smaller but the
focus is finer. Site survey sports a terrific set of techniques. and they are increasing
in number all the time. What connects them is that they find, or "sense", archaeo-
logical features, but do not damage them. They can probe beneath the surface, so
they are "invasive", but they leave everything intact (or intend to), so they are non-
destructive. Science is doing for site survey what it is doing for surgery - allowing us
to see deep into the object of study without doing too much damage or removing
tissue. which in our case can never grow again.
The principal applications of site survey are in evaluation, where the objective is to
know as much about a site as possible before deciding what to do about it (its design),
and in research, where its methods are deployed in the implementation stage with a
view to chronicling the development of a settlement or cemetery without digging it.

Techniques

Site survey techniques group into five: using maps and documents, topographical
mapping. surface collection. geophysical survey and sample excavation. Some of
 Site survey

USING MAPS and DOCUMENTS GEOPHYSICAL SURVEY

Metal detector
Resistivity
SURFACE MAPPING Magnetometry
Topography
Vegetation SAMPLE EXCAVATION
Shovel testing
Bore holes
SURFACE COLLECTION Quadrats and trenches
Strip-and-map

FIGURE 5.1 Techniques for site survey.

these we have met already (FIG 5.1). Like all surveys. this one starts indoors in the
archive and map room, where we can often discover surprising things about the study
area, particularly what happened to it during the more recent centuries (FIG 5.2). It
is good to know where recent hedges were grown and ditches dug - if only to discount
them as ancient things. It is also good to know where houses once stood and tracks
once ran. It is equally important to know where modern pipes carrying water, oil or
electricity are buried, as these are going to affect our remote mapping instruments.
In the UK it is mandatory to discover where public service cables run before a project

FIGURE 5.2 The medieval abbey at Byland on maps of the 18th century (a) and the 19th century (b).
These rnaps were used to give the basic layout of the rnonastery in advance of an evaluation project
in 2008 (FAS Ltd).

90 SITE SURVEY
starts. by telephoning the agencies concerned - a procedure known as "dial before
you dig".
Our area of study, say a patch of countryside 500X500m in extent, is marked out on
the map together with every<hing we know about it so far. The modern terrain - the
way the land is being used now - will determine which methods are going to work
best. e.g. topographical mapping where the ground undulates, surface collection on
ploughsoil, magnetic survey away from electricity carriers like pylons. The area is
therefore divided into zones, with a list of operations (interventions) drawn up for
each zone (see Chapter 3). Topography is mapped using a TST (see Chapter 4) and
the points turned into a hachure plan, a contour map or a digital terrain model (DTM).
Hachures show the breaks of slope (whatever their height) soare often more expres-
sive of ancient earthworks (FIG 5.3). Contours show points at the same height above

FIGURE 5.3 The Iron Age hiil-fort of Dunnideer. Scotland: (a) from the air; and (bl and (c1 hachure
plan (Crown copyright RCAHMSI.

SITE SURVEY
91
.. ... , . ..e coi,roiir
suivey ai,d pottcry plot
Çatall?OyLik,Turkey
(coi~rtesyof McDor1clld
liistiti~tel.

900 iO"<i li"" 120"

,>>"tC*.~ cast

1~:,:':
O 21 90 75 ii>o i25 150 i 7 5 200 225
,,,,,,,bi.r

sea levei joined by a tine (FIG 5.4). Surveyors gather points on the break of slope
using a TST or GPS. Computerised plotting programs use the resulting database to
plot either hachure or contour plans as required and the contour plans can be made
so that they too show the breaks of slope. A DTM uses a computer program to modei
the topography as a coniinuous surface which can be viewed from different direc-
tions to put slight bumps into relief using artificial shadow (see FIG 5.5 and 5.15).
Sometimes surface features are pretty subtle- ribbons of iow banks or stones which
remember ancient trackways for example. They may not show from the air (or we
may be in a no-fly zone), so we need to build up the picture piece by piece by survey.
FIG 5.5 shows an example from Egypt.
Surface coilection for site survey will generally use total rather than sample coverage,
since at this scale we want to see variations from metre to metre rather than mile to
mile. The pick-up in this case may require each individual sherd to be plotted (by TST)
in three dimensiotis rather than collected by meti-e square (FIG 5.4). As well as a two-
dimensional map. the three-dimensional co-ordinates of the pottery plot can give us
a contour map of the surface: a steady rise and fali may indicate that the modern
 . . .
. :
..:%.,;'.<~,:: Site suivey at Te1 el-A~iiariia,Egypt,
niapping the ancietit ioad lilies w i t h a GPS: ia1
liow the tiacks appeai oii tlie gioiind; ibl niap of
area siiiveyed; aiid (c) the road l i ~ i e slocatecl
(coiiitesy of Heleii Feiiwick).

farmers had nearly ploughed away an earlier ~medievalsystem of ridge and furrow. In
addition to pottery and flint and topography, surface inspection may address itself to
other parameters: the concentration of phosphate has proved revealing, particularly
in Scandinavia. Phosphate is a decay product of many human and animal activities;
plotting the quantities of phosphate present in the soil gives an indication of where
these activities were concentrated (FIG 5.6).
On turf'or pasture, floral patterns can signal the history of the land (FIG 5.7). Mow
the grass in autumn and wait for the spring flowers and shrubs to appear. Bracken
and brambles like a disturbed, weil-aerated soil, such as is left by a rabbit warren -.
or a robbed grave. Moss grows on sandy subsoils where the topsoil has been
removed. Thick-leaved grasses like well-watered rich soils - and so on. One way of
improving the legibility of turf is to plough it yourself, and then field-walk it to retrieve
FIGURE 5.6 Site surveys carried out at Sutton Hoo. The suriace finds are rnarked by a dot. the double
lines are plotted croprnarks, and the greyscale squares are phosphate rneasurernents.

the artefact pattern. This is justifiable if you can show that the land had already been
ploughed before. and in this way the new ploughing does not count as fresh damage.
There is now a considerable variety of electromagnetic sensing devices which we
know as geophysical. The simplest are the metal detectors beloved of treasure
seekers. some of them highly sophisticated (both machine and user) (Chapter4, FIG
4.4 has a picture). As well as metals these instruments can pick up a signal from
certain kinds of pottery. But they find only artefacts not features. and their problem
is that it is hard to know what kind of an object makes the beep and how deep it is,
without digging it up. This means that the metal detector does not conform to the
site survey specification of being "non-destructive". They can, however, be very use-
ful in finding metallic traces that have disappeared. At Coleshill, near Birmingham, a
detectorist plotted the falien beams of a Roman temple from rows of utterly rusted
s.~3..,.,$;; 2 , , ii-(a) Floral siirvey on the siirface of the Sutton Hoo barrow cemetery. In tlie event tliis
pattern rnainly iiidicated the sites o1 holes dug by recent farrners, tomb raiders and archaeologists;
aiid (b) photograph o1 an aiiornaly.

and invisible nails found by a metal detector. At Sutton Hoo, a metal detector was
used to discover lines of metallic signals where iron from wire fences had dripped
onto the ground. The fences had gone, but knowing where they had been allowed
lawyers to demonstrate the former extent of the landowner's property - and in this
case resulted in a gift of land to the Sutton HooTrust. Metal detectors can also help
FIGURE 5.8 Geophysical surveyors in action:
ia) soil sounding radar; ib) fluxgate gradiometry;
(c) magnetic susceptibility; íd) resistivity meter;
and (e) caesium magnetorneter (N. Macbeth).
to locate areas that are i-ich in metal debris, which are tliei-efore itns~iitablefor some
kiiids of geophysical instrument.
The more sophisticated instruments in the geophysical toolbox divide into electrical,
magnetic and radar devices (FIG 5.8). Electrical instt-iiments pass an electric current
througii the ground and measure the resistance or resistivity or conductivity at that
point. Tlie resistance to electric current varies with the type of soil and the arnourit
of rnoisture in it, so this kind of instrurnent will distinguish between, for example, a
ditch and a wall. Magnetic instruments (magiietometers) read the lines of force of
the earth's magnetic field and note where they are being reinforced or weakened iciy
bitried conductors. Other magnetic instruments read the magnetic properties of tlie
soil (its siisceptibility) directly. Baked clays and some decayed wood are strongly
rnagnetic. so this kind of instrument is good at finding hearths or big post-holes.
Whether it measures electric resistance (ohms) or magnetisrn (tesias), the object of
the survey is to rnap out the relative strength of the signals from the ground at
intervals (say 50cm) and observe the pattern. which in turn can be attributed to buried
features. Instruments are getting better all the time, but in general they can only
"see" features a metre or more across (FIG 5.9). The Caesiurn vapour magnetometer
has succeeded in rnapping post-pits only 50cm across, and improvernent is promised
(FIG 5.10). However, at present the biggest single challenge to geophysics i s t o find
and map human burials. which are usiially small (2x1rn) and often close together,
denying the instrurnent the contrast it needs. This problern needs solving since. of ali
site types, the cemetery is the one most in need of prior site survey, for reasons of
both research and conservation.
The performance of a geophysical instrument depends on the terrain and the type of
buried feature. This is often hard to know in advance, and nor are there yet any specific

. ..
:
. .. . .. .. ...
.
:. Fluxgate giadiornetry survey of an lron Age salt works a t Marsal, France. Ia) Geophysical
map, showing furnaces e~therside of a stream bed. ib) Furnaces iindei excavation ilaiirent Olivier
2007).
FIGURE 5.10 Caesium
magnetometry iinds a Neolithic
rnonurnent made of circles of
wooden posts at Stanton Drew,
England (courtesy of Andrew
David).

rules as to which machine will perform best. We can assume that resistivity will
respond weil to buried ditches (they are good conductors) and that rnagnetornetry
will find hearths and other kinds of burnt earth (it has a high magnetic susceptibility).
But often the quickest way in is to do a test: select an area, run severa1 machines
over it, and then excavate it to determine which machine could see which kind of
feature (FIG 5.1 1).
Radar works on a different principle: it fires a bunch of radio waves into the ground
and measures the time they take to bounce back. The time represents the depth, so
this instrument ought to be able to construct "time slices" or radio sections and, given
enough readings. produce a three-dimensional underground map. In practice. there
are so rnany variables that the computer modelling is still very challenging and the
results are still fuzzy. The radio waves can bounce off any kind of interface from the
surface of the subsoil to a random stone: the waves trave1 at different speeds in dif-
ferent kinds of soil and they are easily attenuated (i.e. lost) by damp. Payson Sheets
and Lawrence Conyers had some success at Ceren. E1 Salvador, mapping 22 houses
and a substantial piece of prehistoric landscape at the surface of a Maya site buried
beneath 6m of volcanic ash. At Wroxeter in England, Dean Goodman and Yasushi
Nishimura have made a series of time-slices through the buried Roman town. Mike
Gorman made radio sections through mounds at Sutton Hoo, showing the profiles of
burial chambers and early excavation trenches. At York, John Szyrnanski used a GPR
to locate the voids of tombs under a church floor, and, also by detecting voids, was
able to show the City Council where its medieval wall needed repairing. These are
early examples of what promises to be an underground three-dimensional mapping
device of great power.
 Excavated area Proton lnagnetometer

Feelt,rcr exeowled
Feon8s mappedno! ~ m w l a d

Fluxgate gradiometer Resistivity

FIGURE 5.1 1 Which could see what at Sutton Hoo: geophysical instruments perform on a test area,
subsequently excavated.

SITE SURVEY
99
FIGURE 5.12 Augering for urban evaluation [Hungate. York): (a) the auger is a hollow cylinder about
10-15cms in diameter which is driven into the ground by a mechanical hammer. When extracted it
brings with it a sample of the deposit - a core; and [b) cores indicate the depth of natural and human
deposit (FAS Ltd).

Although non-destructive mapping remains the site surveyors' guiding principle, there
are occasions where digging is appropriate or inevitable. The aim is still to get a sneak
preview while disturbing the archaeological strata as little as possible. Top of the
range ethically is to re-use a hole already dug by someone else, by emptying it and
looking sideways at the section. This is a neat trick in town sites. which often have
old cellars in them. Take out the walls of the cellar, with a mechanical back-actor, and
then clean up the earth wall behind. A t Worcester, I found a Roman road behind an
18th century cellar wall: it was made of grave1 and iron slag and so immovable that
the 18th century builders had given up trying to get rid of it. and incorporated it into
their foundations. At Sutton Hoo we used a farmer's old silage pit t o gain a "free
section" through the prehistoric site at a point where it was best preserved.
However, the only recourse often i s t o go in deep, with a test trench, test-pit or auger
(FIG 5.12). At Bagnolo San Vito, near Mantova in Italy, there was a special problem
to be solved at the site known locally as Forcello - a whaleback by the river Mincio.
Was this a natural hill, oran Etruscan "tell" as implied by sherds of decorated pottery
kicking about in the maize field on top? The prescription was to use augers to make
carotaggi. or bore-holes, about 10cms across t o drill down at intervals and inspect
the characterof the deposit - and see whether it was natural or manmade (FIG 5.1 3).
Here it was indeed man-made, containing sherds, bones. charcoal and crumbling mud
brick, and the overall pattern of deposit depth revealed by the bore-holes mapped
the site's buried shape and edges.
Digging test-pits and trenches always risks damage - but it is sometimes the only
way to peer into a particularly inscrutable site. On the Scottish island of Uist, Steve
 . .:,
; -
.~,,.,;>.
,..$.
':V Bore.hole
siirvey a i Bagnolo San Vito,
ltaly, c-onfirtmiiig and illappiiig
tlie iovv mound of the Etriiscaii
city ideep cieposits in black
cii-ciesi (M. Huininlerl.

Mithen used an array of I X l m test-pits to find where Mesolithic flints were con-
centrated, guiding him to the most fruitful place to look for settlement evidence
(FIG 5.14). Test-pits and trenches are especially effective if time is short and the site
is scheduled to be destroyed; they are widely used to evaluate large areas (see
applications, below).
A last type of "soft" digging well worthy of mention is at once the most revealing and
the least destructive (Colour Plate I a ) . This technique, known as "strip and map",
involves the removal of the turf or topsoil that covers the site, and then cleaning and
recording the surface that shows (see Chapter 6 for more). In effect this surface is
the interface between the disturbed topsoil and the intact archaeology. ln rescue
work. the method is not used as much as it might be because it requires a large
work force and the commercial profession either cannot afford them or finds it
hard to integrate volunteers into their work programme. For this reason they resort
to the use of the more damaging and less informative, but easier to manage, test-
pits and trenches dug by machine. Large cleaned sreas not oniy offer a much more
reliable and non-destructive forecast of what lies beneath, but can be enhanced by
FIGURE 5.14 Test-pits used to focus the activity at a Mesolithic site in Uist, Scotland (courtesy of
McDonald Institute).

geophysical survey conducted at the stripped leve1 - that is on the surface of the
subsoil. Surfaces that have been recorded, but are not needed immediately can be
protected with polythene sheeting and reburied ("strip. map and wrap").

Applications

The bundle of site survey techniques finds its most frequent application at the eval-
uation stage, and particularly in that part of evaluation designed to model the deposit.
As we shall see in Chapter 14. it is an important principle of deposit-modelling not
to be too greedy. We are not trying to write the history of a site, only to discover its
potential to write history.
In the countryside. surface site surveys can paint a sophisticated picture. offering a
sequence of occupations in the same general area, evocatively and non-destructively.

102 SITE S U R V E Y
FIGURE 5.15 Site survey at Hindwell. The topographic survey was generated from numerous points
captured digitally by TST and exported as a three-dimensional CAD file. The result is presented as a
Digital Terrain Model (DTMI.The magnetometer survey. which mapped a Roman fort and a Neolithic
palisade and numerous other features, was laid over the DTM to provide a combined model. in this case
viewed vertically. Surveys by Helmut Becker and Bariy Mastertonfor Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust.

At Hindwell in Wales, the Clwyd-Powys Trust conjured a Neolithic, Bronze Age and
Roman site from a smooth grassy open field (FIG 5.15). The topographical survey
showed the former Bronze Age barrows. and caesium vapour magnetometry mapped
a Neolithic palisade and Roman fort. These maps were laid digitally togethershowing
a detailed sequence that can be viewed vertically or from any other angle. This kind
of composite digital terrain model is a window into the future, when we should be
able to resolve the sequence of shallow sites over severa1 hectares without digging.
Towns and forts of the Roman period produce good results for geophysical mapping
- particularly when they have a regular layout. Nicopolis ad Istrum in Bulgaria was
an abandoned Roman town that was fairly evident, but it had attached to it a later
annexe, and a research project was launched there to find out what this was (FIG
5.16). The Roman town gave a satisfying linear result with resistivity, which meant
that this instrument could be trusted to see what lay within the more irregular post-
Roman annex (the main research objective). Here resistivity and topographical survey
mapped a number of anomalies, which were then investigated by targeted excavation
to reveal a street. two basilicas and a number of other buildings.
FIGURE 5.16 Site survey at Nicopolis. Bulgaria: (a) resistivity survey of Roman building and its
interpretation; (bl topographical survey (hachuresand contours) of the post-Roman annex; (c) resistivity
plot of the annex and idl interpretation of the annex icourtesy of Andrew Poulter).

Roman period sites also produce plenty of pottery and tile. so detailed rnaps of the
extent of occupied areas can be made quickly. A srnall Byzantine fortification, known
as a quadriburgium, was identified at Louloudies in northern Greece by archaeologist
E. Marki during rescue excavations in advance of the high speed rail link between
Athens and Thessaloniki. This discovery was soon followed in 1995 by a survey
designed to firid out whether the site had stood alone or was pat-t of a larger complex.
The broad survey zone covered 17ha (42 acres), most of it under intensive ciiltivation,
atld the 25 fieids i11the search area had different crops and different degrees of
access: 11 were planted with cotton, 2 with vines, 3 with fruit, 7 had been planted
with cereals, and 2 were iinder grass. The cereals had been harvested and their fields
were stubble or plougli. but in the cotton fields the plants stood about I m high and
0.9m apart. The team found that visibility was excellent on the ploiigh and it was
possible to search the strip of soft topsoil between the standing plants and pick up
pottery without damaging them. Visibility was also good and pick-iip practicable
between the rows of vines and friiit trees, but on the stubble and grass. surface
material was too thin to merit recovery. Surface collection was carried oitt by click
survey (see Chapter 4) followed by pick-up survey in 5X5m areas. By contrast.
stubble and grass provided the surface most accessible to geophysical survey, which
was carried out with a resistivity meter in 20X20m squares. The pottery and tile
scatters showed the site had been occupied in the Hellenistic period (3rd century BC)
and in the early Rornan ernpire (1st to 4th century AD) before being developed as a
Byzantine fort in the 6th. This survey, cornpleted in a single three-week season,
thus discovered a previously itnknown late Rornan defensive enclosure perhaps 4ha
(10 acres) in extent, and mapped an earlier settlernent sequence of nearly a
millennium without a hoie being dug.

Evaluating highland, upland and forested sites, especially for cultures with no flint or
pottery, presents bigger problerns. High precision topographical survey, using TST
on the ground and lidar in the air presents the first recourse. Phosphate rnapping
is effective where the ambient phosphate (e.g. from fertiliser) is not overwhelming.
Geophysical responses can be poor where the ground is boggy, spongy or wet. l i is
understandable that evaluators in this terrain quickly resort to digging test-pits and
trenches. Even then. the rewards rnay be sparse in terms of artefacts, and the rnain
function of the pits becomes to provide samples. At Achany Glen, Rod McCullagh
and Richard Tipping set out to evaluate the corridor of a new road 3.5krn long and
300m wide. They first searched the archives in Edinburgh for records of earlier
discoveries in reports and on aerial photographs, then they divided the corridor into
50X50m blocks and exarnined each block by surface inspection in transects at 5rn
interval spacing. As a result, 752 features were recognised in 237 blocks, although
13% of these were later rejected as being natural hurnps and hollows. Detailed
topography and vegetation boundaries were also recorded. together with samples of
soil depth. This stage was completed by 16 fieldworkers in 22 weeks. Some 30% of
the sites located were then selected randomly and visited by a field team who cut a
2 X l m trench through each one. This led to the excavation of 27 sites and the taking
of 4,000 environmental sarnples. The eventual yield from the project included a
detailed environmental history and descriptions of an early Bronze cairn, Bronze
Age round houses and clearance cairns, an Iron Age defended site, nurnerous field
boundaries and a late 18th century long house.
Deposits in towns, encumbered by modern buildings, also present a powerful chal-
lenge for slte surveyors. Town archives can bevery rich, so that some of the intimate
history of a town site can be sketched in advance. There are also opportunities for
"free-sections" such as that behind the ceilar wall at Worcester (earlier). Resistivity
and radar have been used on town sites, but without very convincing results. The
objective is to model the deposit in three dimensions, to find out as much as possible
about its depth. what it contains and its state of preservation. This in turn suggests
the research targets available, the recovery levels that are appropriate, how long the
excavation will take, and consequently how much it will cost. Sometimes this can be
inferred from bore-holes, but in nine times out of ten only a trench cut through the
site (oralong one edge) can offera reliable forecast. Such a trench. dug stratigraphic-
ally rather than cut by machine, allows the excavator to encounter most of the likely
rewards and problems at first hand.

SITE SURVEY FOR RESEARCH

As in other sciences, archaeological techniques and objectives are in dialogue,
each encouraging and enlarging the ambitions of the other. As remote mapping
techniques improve. so research projects that rely solely or mainiy on site survey for
their success are becoming more common. The high cost of excavation and its increas-
ingly specialist and time-consuming character are also leading some researchers in
this direction. Certain types of site (e.g. gardens and graveyards), and other types
of research-emphasis (e.g. an interest in space rather than sequence, and in some
cases a focus on later. better preserved, periods) have also created a new following.
In Gloucestershire, Mick Aston and Chris Gerrard. assisted by a mighty cohort of
volunteers. examined the village of Shapwick and its surroundings, inside and out
over many years. They applied topographic survey, shovel testing, geophysical survey
and chemical survey -among other achievements finding a lost medieval church from
the concentration of lead in its churchyard. This early example of "community archae-
ology" provided a fertile social context, in which many local people could become
active participants as well as stakeholders in the campaign. The result was a
meticulous model of a Medieval settlement, its buildings, woods and fields from its
earliest inhabitants to the great changes of the Reformation in the 16th century.
Ever since James Deetz showed their research potential in New England, USA. the
memorials in the graveyards of recent times have become attractive to archaeologists
and social historians. The inscriptions on the tombstones reveal the type of people
who are being commemorated, and when. The iconography,with its cherubs, spades.
coffins, hour-glasses and skulls, chronicles the contemporary attitudes to death. and
shows up links between families. The dates on the stones mean that the development
of the burial ground can be mapped. this being amplified by records of the deceased
and of land grants. Accordingly the data required by the survey is a map of all the
memorials, a topographical map of the cemetery, a record of all the inscriptions and
 The churchyard at

on the gravestoiies iabove); recoiding

meinorials ibelow) iaiithor).

the folk art and as rnuch information as possible on the history of the land and the
cornmunity that used it to bury their dead. These surveys have tended to focus on
Christian graveyards, which are relatively well documented (like Portmahomack in
FIG 5.171, but there is no reason why they should. Every burial ground is a material
archive of its people, worthy of study as it is worthy of rnernory.
Two other kinds of site, battlefields and gardens. conclude this brief review. Before
the advent of trench warfare and the building of redoubts, sites used as battiefields
were potentially covered in debris dropped diiring the battle. The North American
site of the Little Bighorn. Montana, extending to some 500 acres, was the scene of
General Custer's Last Stand against the Sioux and Cheyenne in 1876. Researchers
wanted to know how the lines were drawn up, what happened during the battle and
how it ended. The sources of information were thousands of bullets and cartridge
cases and a number of graves. More than 4,000 items were located using a metal
detector, and subsequent ballistic analysis showed that they had been fired by 215
firearms of 30 types. Researcher Richard E. Fox interpreted the patterns of the bullets
and graves as indicating that the Plains Indians had had a numberof rifles themselves,
used to good effect against an enemy who were expecting a mass advance on the
Medieval rnodel.
The battle of Towton was Medieval, and is thought to be the bloodiest encounter
to have taken place on British soil. On 29 March 1461 many thouçands of knights
and soldiers lost their lives on a snow-covered field in central England. The site
was marked on early maps, and remembered to this day as Bloody Meadow. In 1996
builders constructing a new garage discovered part of a mass grave. and archae-
ologists subsequently analysed the skeletal material, which showed terrible wounds
frorn swords and armour-piercing arrowheads. Metal detectors were used to attempt
a map of the course of the battle, but the quantity of ferrous material in the field from
recent agriculture meant that the distribution could not be obtained from the signals
alone. Curiously the 15th century material that was actually recovered came mainly
from horse harness and personal ornaments rather than weapons. Battlefield surveys

FIGURE 5.18 Civil War battlefieldat Grafton Regis. with a plot of shot found by metal detector (Glen
Foard).
have had more success at later (17th century) battle sites, such as Grafton Regis,
since the metal detector can be used to plot the distinctive lead shot from muskets
and pistols (FIG 5.1 8).
The rediscovery and study of formal gardens, usually 17th to 19th centuries in date.
throw light on the lives of the occupants of stately homes. and their present managers
are attracted by the prospect of restoring them. This type of site mainly contains
broad and shallow deposits, often with strong geometric alignments. At Pfauinsel,
Germany. Michael Seiler located paths laid out by Peter Joseph Lenne (1789-1866)
from early maps and topographic survey and then sampled them with test trenches.
The paths were found to have been made up with a layer of yellowish red shingle
compacted with clay, which provided a pleasing contrast to the green lawns. Seiler
used a metal detector to find the cast-iron pipes which supplied the fountains.
The more sensitive geophysical methods developed in recent decades have proved
to be a boon for garden archaeologists. Shallow geometric features such as former
paths and beds are often easily detected and mapped without recourse to excavation.
The repeated tilling and manuring of a flower bed give rise to long-term moisture
retention and enhanced low-resistance anomalies. Magnetornetry responds well to
magnetically enhanced sediments and burning, so locating typical- but ephemeral-
garden features such as bonfires and middens. The standard resistivity procedure for
a garden site will take readings at Im intervals (since the paths will be generally at
least this wide), with a twin-probe spacing of 0.5m giving a depth sensitivity of about
Im, but greater depth (wider spacing) is needed to find underground conduits and
features beneath terraces. It is harder to discover what was once growing in the flower
beds by digging them, since humus provides a highly active micro-environment in
which roots and seeds are eventually recycled.
In theory gardens can be of any age, but in practice their formality and recreational
features confine them to the great houses of the rich. The earliest found in Britain
was the Roman garden with avenues and ornamental tree stances excavated at
Fishbourne by Barry Cunliffe. But the majority belong to a later age of grandeur -
the 18th and 19th century. For this reason the point of departure for the survey is
often an old map, then amplified by geophysical surveys or trenching used to locate
paths and the water supply, as in Wessex Archaeology's investigations at Lydiard
Park (FIG 5.19). Subsequently, the paths may be restored, and old flower beds and
shrubberies replanted as part of a restoration programme. Thus the site survey is
also a blueprint for restoring an old garden to new life.

Site surveys produce detailed maps in two or three dimensions of features that could
have archaeological significance above and below ground. The techniques include

SITE S U R V E V "189
docuinentary records, surface inspection and collection. remote sensing devices and
test digging in pits, trenches or strip-and-map. In evaluation. the main target is the
extent a ~ i dthe character of the deposit, its potential rewards and problems. In
research, site survey can sometimes sai1 alone, charting the history of a village, a
cemetery, a battlefield o r a garden without the need for large-scale digging.

Briefing

Site survey for its own sake is still rare. so some very successful site surveys are
hidden in large researcli excavation reports or even more in the thousands of pre-
construction evaluations carried out worldwide every year. Since these are conducted
for governments or private clients (see Chapter 15), they rarely make their way into
the literature. Within the profession therefore, there is a wealth of experience that is
hard to tap other than by being in it. For those in a hurry, M. Carver 2005 (Chapter
2) offers an introduction to a range of site survey techniques applied to a rural site
in order to make a resource model.

History and Principies

Aitken et ai 1958. Aspinall 1992, Donaghue 2001. M . Carver 2003. What is a site?:
Lucas 2001, 168, Dunnell 1992. Darviil 2005 (framework for a site and its environs,
Stonehenge).

Techniques

Archives and maps: There are lots of examples of investigations using early site
maps in the journals Medieval Archaeology and Post-Medieval Archaeology (e.g.
Fleming and Barker 2008); Framework 2008 (246, 260) for an Essex deer park
endorsed hunting lodge by an old map and by excavation (see Chapter 12): see
also landscapes (Chapter 4) and gardens (below). For general discussions on maps,
documents and sites see Crawford 1953. Deetz 1967, C. Taylor 1974, Rogers and
Rowley 1974, Beaudry 1988, Rippon 2004.
For examples of topographic surveys (contour and hachure plans) and DTMs
(Digital Terrain Models). see RCAHMS 2007. M. Carver 2005, 16, Hodder 1996,
Gibson1999. Systematic vegetation mapping was used in M . Carver 2005. 17.
Geochemical mapping: Craddock et al 1985, Ball and Kelsay 1992. Bjelajac
et al 1996 (for phosphate) and Lippi 1988 (ir the jungle). For mapping other chemical
elements in the soil see Bintliff et al 1992. Aston et al 1998, Heron 2001. Cessford
2005. Bull et al for detecting manuring. Geophysical mapping (including resistivity
and gradiometry) is discussed in Aitken et al 1958, Clark 1975. Weymouth 1986,
Clark 1990. Aspinall 1,992. Becker 1995. Arnold et al 1997 (jungle), Lyall and
Powlesland 1996 (fluxgate), Masterson 1999 (Tara). Sternberg 2001, Gaffney and
Gater 2003, David et al 2004, Gibson 1999 (caesium magnetometry). Pasquinucci
and Trément 2000 has sections on geochemical and geophysical methods applied in
the Mediterranean. A metal-detector survey was applied formally at Sutton Hoo,
M. Carver 2005, 18. Dowsing has been claimed as useable in Bailey et al 1988,
Locock 1995. Ground penetrating or soil sounding radar appeared as prototypes in
Sharer and Ashmore 1979, 166-7. Aitken and Milligan 1992, Batey 1987, Imai et al
1987, while Goodman and Nishimura 1993. Goodman et al 1995. Conyers and
Goodrnan 1997, Goodman and Nishimura 2000 and Sheets 2002 (Ceren) put the
more high performance modern instruments through their paces. For discussion about
test-pits see Nance and Ball 1986. Hester et al 1997 (58-741, Mithen 2000 (for
Uist) and see Chapter 6 (excavation); for strip and map, Crawford 1933; Carver
2005,43-7.

Applications

General: David 2001. Donaghue 2001

Large-scalesite mapping: Gibson 1999 (Hindwell topographic and geophysical
model). Gaffney et al 2000 (large-scale mapping with a fluxgate at Wroxeter),
Powlesland et al 1997 (Vale of Pickering). Site evaluation is discussed in M. Carver
2003 and for some specific examples see Clay 2001, David 2001. English Heritage
1995. Gaffney and Gater 1993. Weymouth 1995 (Ohio). Hodder 1996 (Çatalhoyuk).
Poulter 1995 (Nicopolis). idem 1998 (Louloudies), M. Carver 2005, Chapter 2 (Sutton
Hoo). Examples of fine research surveys are Newman 1997 (for Tara). McCullagh
and Tipping 1998 (Achany Glen) and Aston and Gerrard 1999 (Shapwick). Mytum
2000,2004 for how to record and interpret graveyards. Battlefield archaeology
is usefully reviewed in Freeman 1998 and Freeman and Pollard 2001. Fox 1993 for
Little Big Horn. Fiorato et al 2007 for Towton, and Foard 2001 for Grafton Regis.
Garden archaeology is blooming in Europe; see Taylor 1983, Brown 1991. Currie
and Locock 1991, Millerand Gleason 1994, Jacques 1997, Cole et al 1997 for exam-
ples of geophysical surveys. Doneus et al 2001; Cunliffe 1971 (Plate II and III) fcr
Fishbourne, Wessex Archaeology 2004 for Lydiard Park.