The dawning of a new epoch in educational archaeology: Can ground penetrating radar (GPR) be used to detect archaeological artifacts buried beneath a desert terrain environment?

摘要

The history of archaeological education in the United States is divided into three periods: (1) The Jeffersonian Epoch from 1776--1970, (2) the Binford-Statistical Epoch from 1970--2000, and (3) the High-technology Epoch which began in earnest in the year 2000 until the present day.; In archaeology, as in several fields, theory follows practice. Thus, what began as field methods in archaeology a few months ago will eventually find itself being taught in the classroom in upcoming years as "established theory." This pattern has characterized educational archaeology for the past two centuries in the United States. New field practices are currently being practiced involving extremely high-tech computer graphics packages, known as Geographical Information Systems (GIS), non-intrusive underground scanning devices called Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), and highly sophisticated satellite tracking, mapping, and surveying electronic hardware called Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) devices.; Several exciting lost cities and long-forgotten archaeological sites have recently been uncovered with the aide of these new high-technology archaeological tools. At present, only a handful of archaeologist-educators are trained in the nuances of the high technological science because their training began in the Epoch One or Epoch Two periods of archaeological education.; The purpose of the paper has been to describe the three periods of archaeological education and to scientifically test the hypothesis, "can GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) be used to detect archaeological artifacts buried beneath a desert terrain environment?"