Geophysical and Archaeological Evidences of Buried Epipalaeolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Roman Architecture in West‐Central Syria

Abstract

The study area is one of many important archaeological sites located near the city of Homs in Syria. Here, the existence of archaeological remains was studied using two complementary geophysical methods: ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT). The results provide evidence of localized buried remains and allowed detailed pre-excavation planning. Furthermore, the later archaeological excavations validated the results obtained from the GPR and ERT surveys. In some areas, the presence of moist clayey soils caused significant attenuation of the radar signal. Conversely, under these circumstances, the contrast in electrical resistivity between natural soil and archaeological targets is enhanced and thus the ERT results identified the archaeological remains.

Many two-dimensional (2D) profiles showed a set of high relative resistivity values depicting well-defined discontinuous structures within the first 2 m of depth. Nevertheless, their geometrical distribution and shape was much more clearly defined in the depth slice maps generated from the three-dimensional (3D) blocks. As a result, data analysis provided a high-resolution image of the subsurface distribution of the electrical resistivity properties of each area surveyed that can easily be interpreted in terms of structures of archaeological interest.