ERT and GPR Prospecting Applied to Unsaturated and Subwater Analogue Archaeological Site in a Full Scale Laboratory

Abstract

Geophysical techniques are widely applied in the archaeological field to highlight variations of the physical behaviour of the subsoil due to the presence of ancient and buried remains., Considerable efforts are required to understand the complexity of the relationship between archaeological features and their geophysical response where saturated conditions occur. In the case of lacustrine and wetland scenarios, geophysical contrasts or electromagnetic signal attenuation effects drastically reduce the capabilities of the geophysical methodologies for the detection of structures in such conditions. To identify the capability of the electrical and electromagnetic methods in different water-saturated scenarios, an experimental activity was performed at the Hydrogeosite CNR laboratory. The test allowed us to analyze the limits and potentialities of an innovative approach based on the combined use of the ground-penetrating radar and 2D and 3D electrical resistivity tomographies. Results showed the effectiveness of the ground-penetrating radar for detecting archaeological remains also in quasi-saturated and underwater scenarios despite the em signal attenuation phenomena; whilst the results obtained involving the resistivity tomographies offered a new perspective for the archaeological purposes due to the use of the loop–loop shaped array. Moreover, the radar signal attenuation, resolution and depth of investigation do not allow to fully characterize the archaeological site as in the case of the scenarios with a limited geophysical contrast (i.e., water-saturated and arid scenarios). The experimental tests show that these limits can be only partially mitigated through the integration of the geophysical methodologies and further efforts are necessary for improving the results obtainable with an integrated use of the adopted geophysical methodologies.