NCPTT

Participant collects resistivity data

The National Park Service's 2009 workshop on archaeological prospection techniques entitled Current Archaeological Prospection Advances for Non-Destructive Investigations in the 21st Century will be held May 18-22, 2009, at the NCPTT headquartes in Natchitoches, La. The field exercises will take place at the Los Adaes State Historic Site. Co-sponsors for the workshop include the National Park Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Adaes State Historic Site, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, and the Louisiana Division of Historic Preservation.

This will be the 19th year of the workshop dedicated to the use of geophysical, aerial photography, and other remote sensing methods as they apply to the identification, evaluation, conservation, and protection of archaeological resources. The workshop will present lectures on the theory of operation, methodology, processing, and interpretation with on-hands use of the equipment in the field. There is a registration charge of $475.00. Application forms are available on the Midwest Archeological Center's web page at http://www.nps.gov/history/mwac/.

Prospection in Depth 2008

NCPTT held its third annual workshop on archeological prospection Sept. 16-20, 2008 at the historic Presidio in San Francisco. “Prospection in Depth” integrated concepts, data collection, excavation, and interpretation.

NCPTT has responded to the emerging need for advanced technology-based archaeology training with "Prospection in Depth," a training series that will be held Sept. 16-20 in partnership with the Presidio Trust at the site of El Presidio de San Francisco. Four instructors and other technical advisors will showcase ground penetrating radar, electrical conductivity/resistivity, and magnetic gradiometry. Additionally, for the first time the curriculum will showcase the use of portable X-ray fluoresence as a cutting-edge geochemical field technique.

For more information contact David Morgan online or by phone at 318-356-7444.

Research is one way to foster and develop technological innovations and applications that enhance the preservation of archaeological sites, landscapes, materials. NCPTT conducts its own research; provides assistance to independent external research projects; and actively seeks to build new partnerships to leverage research dollars and knowledge. Below are a few examples of recent and ongoing research endeavors.

A New Approach to Geophysics Pedagogy

The "Prospection in Depth" course, currently in its second iteration, offers a new approach to archaeological pedagogy. The National Center training course followed a well-worn path in professional development and student training by incorporating multiple geophysical techniques, hands-on equipment use, and data collection at genuine archaeological sites. However, we offered several unique twists:

1. we partnered with a large-scale research project so that the training was embedded in a rich matrix of theory, method, and purpose;
2. we provided workshop trainees and their instructors the opportunity to investigate the actual archaeological correlates of their remotely-sensed data; and
3. we offered an on-line, virtual course component to the general public that greatly enhanced the workshop's effectiveness and visibility.

This type of learning environment is seldom, if ever, offered in professional development contexts outside of formal university field schools, despite the apparent benefits that both partners would enjoy and the multitude of contract or academic field projects underway around the country at any given moment.

Participants in 'Prospection in Depth 2006'

Participants discover a 19th-century brick floor to be the cause of a strong radar anomaly. Its discovery prompted a student-teacher dialogue about why the large surface, of which a small part as exposed, failed to register geophysically in other areas of the site.
(Photo: NCPTT)

When it comes to geophysics training most courses for professionals stress field methods, which is a viable, activity-centered instructional technique. However, because they prioritize instrument operations over anomaly interpretation, ironically they never move far beyond the teacher-centric model. Students simply do not possess the decades of experiential knowledge necessary to interpret anomalies, and have no basis to make the inferential, intuitive leaps from anomaly to archaeological correlate. In the absence of excavating, students remain wholly reliant on the intellectual capital of their teachers. The activity-based component of most geophysics courses thus applies only to the mechanics of instrumentation and application; students actively learn how to operate the machines, set up grids, and download data. What interpretation is present is necessarily done as part of a hierarchical, teacher-centric process largely bereft of true dialogue.

GPS & GIS

Instructor Diedre McCarthy discusses GPS readings with a participant. Participants collected GPS data for incorporation into a GIS.
(Photo: NCPTT)

Prospection in Depth, in contrast, places geophysics instruction in the context of an ongoing academic excavation project, and teachers and students jointly excavate select anomalies to better understand exactly what it is that structures them. NCPTT's approach thus carries the activity model into the interpretive realm in what is best characterized as a constructivist approach to learning. In the latter theory, students actively interact with with information and peers to construct new knowledge for themselves. Participants know their exercises directly inform legitimate, active archaeological questions. This gives participant's work an importance, an immediacy lacking in teacher-centric models that build off canned data sets.

Ground penetrating radar

An instructor tests ground penetrating radar at Prospection in Depth 2006.
(Photo: NCPTT)

In practical terms, the academic project obtained survey coverage of 2400 m2 of the site that they would not otherwise have had, along with the interpretive assistance of five experts, at little to no fiscal or logistical cost. The workshop participants not only gained experience in geophysics, but also experienced the mental stimulation of engaging in the type of research dialogue only generated by a mature research project and a constructivist pedagogy.

Information on the NCPTT model was provided to the professional public in the following forum:

Arntzen, Katherine and David W. Morgan
2007 "Prospection in Depth: The Educational Benefits of Fusing Geophysical Prospection Training with Mature Research Projects." Paper presented at the 40th Annual Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology, Williamsburg, Virginia.

From June 6-23, 2006, NCPTT partnered with the NPS Midwest Archeology Center, the NPS Cultural Resources GIS laboratory, the University of Mississippi, and Northwestern State University of Louisiana to hold its first training program on non-destructive archeological prospection techniques. This intensive workshop is unique in that it uses data from an ongoing, mature grant-funded research project to provide hands-on training in the integration of GIS, GPS, and remote sensing technology. By collaborating with academic researchers, moreover, the training event offered an unparalleled opportunity to combine data collection with field testing. Four instructors and 10 participants from all over the country used the St. Anne and Whittington plantation sites as learning laboratories.

“Prospection in Depth” forms the basis for NCPTT’s first approach to an online, interactive training module. The web site chronicles the interwoven prospection and testing results of the Summer Institute participants and instructors, plus the excavation efforts of the research teams funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.K. Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The 2006 fieldwork marks the third and most intensive season of excavations undertaken as part of the academic research project. Consequently, Summer Institute ground-truthing occurs within a well-documented historical, archival, and archaeological set of contexts, making the training experience all the more robust. The Summer Institute participants and instructors together tested some 11 square meters covering key geophysical anomalies. Then the international team of 11 researchers went on to excavate and additional 89 square meters as units and some 6 square meters as 75 shovel tests.

The preliminary field results are presented on the NCPTT website, so that “Prospection in Depth” participants and other interested people can learn from this unique fusion of technological training and traditional research. The archaeological public is encouraged to join the teams in this endeavor by ground-truthing the remote sensing data themselves. The public is invited to:

• select a site to explore
• examine the remote sensing data
• compare anomalies with excavation unit and/or shovel test locations
• virtually excavate the unit or shovel test in question by studying the context (excavation) forms, plan view drawings, profile drawings, and photographs

This approach to geophysical prospection training is unique pedagogically, too.