This award provides funds to permit Ithaca College to acquire a suite of ground-based remote sensing (GBRS) instruments, soil sampling tools, and analysis software. GBRS instruments (ground-penetrating radar, resistivity, magnetometry, magnetic susceptibility, and conductivity) record the geophysical properties of the soils and subsurface objects. Each of these non-invasive methods record different physical parameters and each method's effectiveness depends upon the properties of the materials being studied. The goal of using these methods is to obtain a view into the subsurface prior to or without conducting archaeological excavation, and the use of multiple instruments can enhance one's view into the subsurface. GBRS surveys record information about geophysical parameters, but more importantly these surveys are recording the geophysical signals related to human interaction with the landscape by identifying subsurface house locations, activity areas, drainage systems, burials, and trash piles.
Ithaca College anthropology and physics departments and Cornell University anthropology and landscape architecture departments are collaborating to better understand Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) settlement patterns and improving the effectiveness of archaeological geophysical techniques. The Finger Lakes region of New York State provides a rich environment for answering anthropological questions about the Haudenosaunee. Although site locations are well documented very little is known about settlement patterns and transitions in settlement patterns before and during interaction with European settlers. The 1779 Sullivan Campaign that destroyed Cayuga and Seneca villages along both sides of Cayuga Lake dispersed members of these Nations making it difficult to reconstruct settlement patterns, social networks, and economic networks. To gain an understanding of community patterning one must look at sites across the entire region making the use of GBRS techniques especially critical due to covering much larger areas in shorter times than traditional archaeological methods while still retaining high-resolution sampling.
Acquisition of instruments supported by this award will also allow for the creation of an Ithaca College Methods in Applied Geophysics summer field school and weekend-long professional workshops. Ithaca College is centrally located among a large number of institutions of higher education (Binghamton University, Colgate University, Cornell University, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, SUNY @ Cortland, SUNY @ Geneseo, SUNY @ Oswego, Syracuse University, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Rochester, and Wells College), and in a region of rich historic and archaeological interest, but there is no regional GBRS field school. There is little experience with archaeological geophysical methods in the region, including sites under the control of the National Forest Service, National Park Service, and State Parks. Some other regions of the United States and European investigators are currently well ahead of their colleagues in the northeastern United States in use of remote sensing and related tools. The summer field school and weekend workshops made possible by the acquisition of the instruments supported by this award will educate current cultural resource management professionals and the next generation of archaeologists on how to successfully use the most modern instruments for non-invasively imaging beneath the soils.
