Investigation of ancient settlements and bronze artifacts by geophysical prospecting methods

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There are several purposes for applying geophysical prospecting methods in archaeological research :1) To define the area of ancient palace, local government, temple and settlement sites, which occupy large spatial areas by using geophysical prospecting methods effectively and precisely. For archaeological research and excavation on these sites, it is difficult to identify the boundaries and inner structure by using common excavation procedures, becouse of the immense amount of time required to excavate such large areas, as well as from limitations of excavation budgets. For geophysical surveying to be able to map the subsurface archaeology, contrasts between the surrounding subsoils and the archaeological targets is required.The physical phenomena which geophysical equipment can measure contrasts in subsurface materials include soil resistanse, susceptibility, dielectric and conductivity (ehich is important in the reflection and attenuation of microwaves).2) To identify the location where bronze objects, common in Yayoi period, are buried randomly within a site. Because of these archaeological conditions, it is difficult to estimate the exact location where the artifact is buried by simple observation of the ground surface. To help the research of those wide area archaeological sites and to locate bronze artifacts, geophysical surveying methods such as resistivity, magnetometry, GPR (ground penetrating redar) and electromagnetic method (EM) were employed in this program to accomplish the research objective.A final conclusion based on the research indicates that it is important to employ GPR first for identifying subsurface structures and to apply resistivity and magnetometry method as a way to corroborate the results first recognized in the GPR survey. For locating bronze artifacts, the EM method is effective, and GPR,resistivity, magnetometry can provide the additional information for understanding the location where they are buried.