Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T23:04:16.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Soilscapes and settlements: remote mapping of activity areas in unexcavated prehistoric farmsteads

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2012

Roderick B. Salisbury
Roderick B. Salisbury*
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is excellent to be able to present this latest achievement in the onward march of remote mapping, the art and science of exploring archaeological sites without digging them. Using a particularly graphic case study in Hungary, the author shows that deposits characterised by geophysical and chemical means can reveal their plans and the emphasis of their activity in some detail. This is not only a rapid and economic means of landscape investigation, but offers striking research results over a broad canvas, indicative of the numerous small dispersed settlements that so often escape the attention of the great excavation campaigns.

Keywords

HungaryNeolithicCopper Agesoilscapecommunitygeoarchaeologyhousehold clusterchemical mappingremote mapping
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 86 , Issue 331 , March 2012 , pp. 178 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Balkansky, A. K. 2006. Surveys and Mesoamerican archaeology: the emerging macroregional paradigm. Journal of Archaeological Research 14: 53–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bánffy, E. 1994. Transdanubia and eastern Hungary in the Early Copper Age. Josa András Múzeum évkönyve 36: 291–94.Google Scholar
Bevan, A. & Conolly, J.. 2009. Modelling spatial heterogeneity and nonstationarity in artifact-rich landscapes. Journal of Archaeological Science 36: 956–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bognár-Kutzián, I. 1972. The Early Copper Age Tiszapolgár culture in the Carpathian basin. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Boivin, N. & Owoc, M. A. (ed.). 2004. Soils, stones and symbols: cultural perceptions of the mineral world. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Bolger, D. & Maguire, L. C. (ed.). 2010. The development of pre-state communities in the ancient Near East. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Carver, M.O.H. 2005. Sutton Hoo: a seventh-century princely burial ground and its context. London: British Museum Press.Google Scholar
Drennan, R. D. 2009. Statistics for archaeologists. A commonsense approach. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Ecsedy, I., Lászl, K. ó, Borbála, M. & István, T.. 1982. Magyarország Régészeti Topográfiája VI [Archaeological topography of Hungary]. Békés Megye Régészeti Topográfiája: A Szeghalmi Járás (IV/1). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Eidt, R. C. 1973. A rapid chemical field test for archaeological site surveying. American Antiquity 38: 206–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Entwistle, J. A., Mccaffrey, K.J.W. & Dodgshon, R.A.. 2007. Geostatistical and multi-elemental analysis of soils to interpret land-use history in the Hebrides, Scotland. Geoarchaeology 22: 391–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GáL, E., Juhász, I. & Sümegi, P. (ed.). 2005. Environmental archaeology in north-eastern Hungary (Varia archaeologica Hungarica 19). Budapest: Institute for Archaeology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Gyucha, A. 2009. A Körös-vidék kora rézkora. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Eötvös Loránd University.Google Scholar
Holliday, V. T. & Gartner, W. G.. 2007. Methods of soil P analysis in archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Science 34: 301–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jankovich, D., Makkay, J. & Szoke, B. (ed.) 1989. Magyarország Régészeti Topográfiája VIII [Archaeological topography of Hungary]. Békés Megye Régészeti Topográfiája: A Szarvasi Járás (IV/2). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Jankovich, D., Medgyesi, E., Nikolin, E., Szatmári, I. & Torma, I. (ed.) 1998. Magyarország Régészeti Topográfiája X [Archaeological topography of Hungary]. Békés és Békéscsaba (IV//3). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Jolliffe, I. T. 2002. Principal components analysis. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Jones, R., Challands, A., French, C., Card, N., Downes, J. & Richards, C.. 2010. Exploring the location and function of a Late Neolithic house at Crossiecrown, Orkney by geophysical, geochemical and soil micromorphological methods. Archaeological Prospection doi: 10.1002/arp.370.Google Scholar
Kalicz, N. & Raczky, P.. 1987. The Late Neolithic of the Tisza region: a survey of recent archaeological research, in Tálas, L. & Raczky, P. (ed.) The Late Neolithic of the Tisza region: 11–29. Budapest-Szolnok: Kossuth Kiadó.Google Scholar
Liu, L. 2004. The Chinese Neolithic: trajectories to early states. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Middleton, W. D. & Price, T. D.. 1996. Identification of activity areas by multi-element characterization of sediments from modern and archaeological house floors using inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy. Journal of Archaeological Science 23: 673–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milek, K. 2007. Houses and households in early Icelandic society: geoarchaeology and the interpretation of social space. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Neustupný, E. 1991. Community areas of prehistoric farmers in Bohemia. Antiquity 65: 326–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owoc, M. A. 2005. From the ground up: agency, practice, and community in the southwestern British Bronze Age. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12: 257–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkinson, W. A. 2002. Integration, interaction, and tribal ‘cycling’: the transition to the Copper Age on the Great Hungarian Plain, in Parkinson, W. A. (ed.) The archaeology of tribal societies: 391–438. Ann Arbor (MI): International Monographs in Prehistory.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkinson, W. A. 2006a. The social organization of Early Copper Age tribes on the Great Hungarian Plain (British Archaeologial Reports international series 1573). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Parkinson, W. A. 2006b. Tribal boundaries: stylistic variability and social boundary maintenance during the transition to the Copper Age on the Great Hungarian Plain. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 25: 33–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkinson, W. A., Yerkes, R. W. & Gyucha, A.. 2004. The transition to the Early Copper Age on the Great Hungarian Plain: the Körös Regional Archaeological Project excavations at Veśzto-Bikeri and Körösladány-Bikeri, Hungary, 2000-2002. Journal of Field Archaeology 29: 101–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkinson, W. A., Gyucha, A., Yerkes, R. W., Morris, M.R., Sarris, A. & Salisbury, R. B.. 2010. Early Copper Age settlements in the Körös region of the Great Hungarian Plain. Journal of Field Archaeology 35: 164–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pauketat, T. R. 2003. Resettled farmers and the making of a Mississippian polity. American Antiquity 68: 39–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pécsi, M. 1970. Geomorphological regions of Hungary. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Pécsi, M. & Sárfalvi, B.. 1964. The geography of Hungary. London: Collets.Google Scholar
Pollard, A. M., Batt, C., Stern, B. & Young, S.M.M.. 2007. Analytical chemistry in archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salisbury, R. B. 2010. Sediments, settlements and space: a practice approach to Late Neolithic communities on the Great Hungarian Plain. Unpublished PhD dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo.Google Scholar
Sarris, A., Galaty, M. L., Yerkes, R. W., Parkinson, W.A., Gyucha, A., Billingsley, D. M. & Tate, R.. 2004. Geophysical prospection and soil chemistry at the Early Copper Age settlement of Veszto-Bikeri, southeastern Hungary. Journal of Archaeological Science 31: 927–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schiffer, M. B. 1976. Behavioral archaeology. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Simpson, I. A., Guttmann, E. B., Cluett, J. P. & Shepherd, A.. 2006. Characterizing anthropic sediments in north European Neolithic settlements: an assessment from Skara Brae, Orkney. Geoarchaeology 21(3): 221–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, H., Marshall, P. D. & Parker Pearson, M.. 2001. Reconstructing house activity areas, in Albarella, U. (ed.) Environmental archaeology: meaning and purpose: 249–70. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sümegi, P. 2007. Mollusc-based environmental reconstruction around the area of the Kiri-tó, in Whittle, A. (ed.) The Early Neolithic on the Great Hungarian Plain. Investigations of the Körös culture site of Ecsegfalva 23, County Békés (Varia Archaeologica Hungarica 21): 109–122. Budapest: Archaeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Sümegi, P. & Gulyás, S. (ed.). 2004. The geohistory of Bátorliget marshland. Budapest: Archaeolingua.Google Scholar
Sümegi, P., Hertelendi, E., Magyari, E. & Molnár, M.. 1998. Evolution of the environment in the Carpathian basin during the last 30,000 BP years and its effects on the ancient habitats of different cultures, in Költö, L. & Bartosiewicz, L. (ed.) Archaeometrical research in Hungary II: 183–97. Budapest-Kaposvár-Veszprém.Google Scholar
Tálas, L. & Raczky, P. (ed.). 1987. The Late Neolithic of the Tisza region. Budapest-Szolnok: Kossuth Press.Google Scholar
Terry, R. E., Fernández, F. G., Parnell, J. J. & Inomata, T.. 2004. The story in the floors: chemical signatures of ancient and modern Maya activities at Aguateca, Guatemala. Journal of Archaeological Science 31: 1237–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, E. C. 2004. Investigating activity patterns in Prehispanic plazas: weak acid-extraction ICP-AES analysis of anthrosols at Classic period El Coyote, northwestern Honduras. Archaeometry 46: 67–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, E. C. 2006. Cultural soilscapes, in Frossard, E., Blum, W.E.H. & Warkentin, B. P. (ed.) Function of soils for human societies and the environment Geological Society special publication 266): 125–32. London: Geological Society.Google Scholar
Wheatley, D. & Gillings, M.. 2002. Spatial technology and archaeology: the archeaological applications of GIS. London & New York: Taylor & Francis.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittle, A. 2003. The archaeology of people. Dimensions of Neolithic life. London & New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zubrow, E.B.W. & Harbaugh, J. W.. 1978. Archaeological prospecting: kriging and simulation, in Hodder, I. (ed.) Simulation studies in archaeology: 109–122. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar