Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 47 (2) 2019   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2019.47.2.103-111

Annotation:  Late Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic of the Eastern Adriatic and the Problem of the Regional Midd Insight into Ceramic Technologies at the Maikop Site of Ust-Dzheguta, Karachay-Cherkessia Chalcolithic and Bronze Age (4th to 3rd Millennia BC) Burials with Gold Ornaments in the Caucasian M Archaeozoological Studies at Konoplyanka, the Southern Trans-Urals Burials in Anthropomorphic Jars in the Philippines The Tamga Signs of the Turkic Nomads in the Altai and Semirechye: Comparisons and Identifi cations Belt Sets of the “Redikar Type” in Medieval Cemeteries of the Volga Finns An Assemblage from a Medieval Burial at Lake Parisento, Gydan Peninsula, the Arctic Zone of Western Finds of Medieval Coins from Eski-Yurt, Crimea Children’s Games in the Sociocultural Space of a Siberian Town: Historical and Archaeological Contex On the Methodology of Studying Palimpsests in Rock Art: The Case of the Shalabolino Rock Art Site, The Use of Remote Sensing, Geophysical Methods and Soil Analysis in the Study of Sites Disturbed by Miklouho-Maclay’s Legacy in Russian- and English-Language Academic Research, 1992–2017 Remnants of the Snake Cult Among the Khakas (Late 19th to Mid 20th Century) “Taiga” and “River” Components in the Nanai Socio-Tribal Organization at Lake Bolon, the Lower Amur The Armenian Epic Poem “Daredevils of Sassoun” and the Mahabharata: Similarity of the Ethnographic S Antemortem Cranial Injuries in the Altai Mountains Pastoralists of the Scythian and Xiongnu-Sarmatia   

The Use of Remote Sensing, Geophysical Methods and Soil Analysis
in the Study of Sites Disturbed by Agricultural Activity

I.V. Zhurbin¹, A.V. Borisov², A.I. Nazmutdinova¹, V.N. Milich¹, R.P. Petrov¹, M.G. Ivanova¹, R.N. Modin³, L.F. Knyazeva¹, N.G. Vorobieva⁴, and S.V. Zinchuk⁵

¹Udmurt Federal Research Center, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, T. Baramzinoy 34, Izhevsk, 426067, Russia

²Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institutskaya 2, Pushchino, Moscow Region, 142290, Russia

³Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Dm. Ulyanova 19, Moscow, 117036, Russia

⁴LTD “FINKO”, 10 let Oktyabrya 24-62, Izhevsk, 426011, Russia

⁵Pushchino State Institute of Natural Sciences, Pr. Nauki 3, Pushchino, Moscow Region, 142290, Russia

This study is based on an interdisciplinary approach to the prospection of archaeological sites impacted by modern agricultural plowing activity. We applied remote sensing, combined with geophysical, geochemical, and archaeological methods at Kushmanskoye III—a medieval Finno-Ugric site in the Cheptsa River basin, northern Udmurtia (9th—13th centuries AD). As a result of many years of plowing, the site cannot be visually demarcated, and visual traces of its extent have been obliterated. Scientific methods included aerial photography from unmanned vehicles (visual range, thermal, and multispectral imaging), geophysical techniques (resistivity and magnetometry surveys, ground penetrating radar, and electrical resistivity tomography), and soil studies (grain size composition, micromorphology, and chemical and biological analyses of soil cores). As a result, we effectively traced the boundaries of the site and of its “household periphery", delineating areas with various degrees of disruption. Our research identified two lines of defensive constructions, previously invisible on the surface. Our findings have enabled us to initiate revision of the site’s status in the register of state-protected archaeological resources. The location of geophysical anomalies, caused by buried features, reveals a regularized row layout to the site. The results are supported by those of archaeological surveys.

Keywords: Medieval sites, agricultural damage, boundaries, layout, aerial photography, geophysics, geochemistry