The DART Project: A major new investigation into what lies beneath our soils

Anthony Beck*, Rob Fry** *School of Computing, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, a.r.beck@leeds.ac.uk **Archaeological, Geographical and Environmental Sciences, University of Bradford, BD7 1DP, R.J.Fry@Bradford.ac.uk Geophysical and Aerial survey have substantially increased our understanding of the nature and distribution of archaeology remains. However, there is variable understanding of the physical, chemical, biological and environmental factors which produce the archaeological contrasts that are detected by the sensor technologies. These factors vary geographically, seasonally and throughout the day, meaning that the ability to detect features changes over time and space. This is not yet well understood. Detection of Archaeological Residues using remote sensing Techniques (DART: www.dartproject.info) is a three year, 815,000 Science and Heritage funded initiative led by the School of Computing at the University of Leeds. The Science and Heritage programme (www.heritagescience.ac.uk) is funded jointly by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC: www.ahrc.ac.uk) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC: www.epsrc.ac.uk). To examine the complex problem of heritage detection DART has attracted a consortium consisting of 25 key heritage and industry organisation, academic consultants, and researchers from the areas of computer vision, geophysics, remote sensing, knowledge engineering, and soil engineering. In October 2010, 3 PhD students were appointed by the scheme at the universities of Leeds, Bradford, and Birmingham, with an additional associated PhD at Birmingham funded by EPSRC. They will be focusing on overlapping research areas in feature detection associated with spectral imaging, geophysics, Time Domain Reflectance (TDR) data analysis, soil engineering and archaeological interpretation. Detection techniques rely on the ability of a sensor to measure the contrast between an archaeological residue and its immediate surroundings or matrix. Detection is influenced by many factors changes in precipitation, temperature, crop stress/type, soil type and structure, and land management techniques. DART will increase the foundational knowledge about the remote sensing of sub-surface archaeological remains. The programme of research has been designed specifically to identify physical, chemical and biological contrast factors that may allow the

detection of archaeological residues (both directly and by proxy) using sensing devices. To determine contrast factors samples and measurements will be taken on and around different sub-surface archaeological features at different times of the day and year to ensure that a representative range of conditions is covered. Field measurements will include geophysical and hyperspectral surveys, thermal profiling, soil moisture and spectral reflectance. Laboratory analysis of samples will include geochemistry and particle size. Models will be developed that translate these physical values into spectral, magnetic and electrical measures in order to determine detection parameters. This will allow DART to address the following research issues: What are the factors that produce archaeological contrasts? How do these contrast processes vary over space and time? What processes cause these variations? How can we best detect these contrasts (sensors and conditions)? The key will be to understand the dynamic interaction between soils, vegetation and archaeological residues and how these affect detection with sensing devices. This requires understanding how the archaeology differs from, and dynamically interacts with, the localised soils and vegetation and how these differences can be detected. From the data collected physical models of soils/sediments variations under different environmental conditions will be developed. This will be mapped onto sensor responses to understand the physical manifestation of contrast and its dynamics. The aim is to map the physical variations into measurable spectral, magnetic and electrical variations. This will allow the development of interpretative and knowledge-based decision tools to, for example: Assist curators in determining the condition of buried archaeological remains and sensor configurations appropriate for their detection. Enhance the discovery of archaeological remains from appropriate archival imagery. DART is committed to both tailoring for and improving the uptake of the research within all communities. This requires engagement with as many of the potential end-user stakeholders as possible. DART has already held one community workshop and will run one more before completion. However, the research team is continually looking for opportunities to engage with different user communities. Do contact the authors if you would like to collaborate with the project.

Sites have been selected in both Cambridgeshire (Diddington) and Cirencester (Royal Agricultural College) for their mixed geologies (having areas of both clay and other better draining soils) and their archaeological potential. These were selected through GIS analysis, historic mapping, and targeted by consultation with the DART consortium and the county archaeologists to find two geographically different areas of investigation http://dartproject.info/WPBlog/?p=464. Initial geophysical (fluxgate gradiometer) surveys were then undertaken to identify archaeological features. The initial focus is on ditches as they will have the most impact in the user community. Potential features were cored in order to characterise the nature of the archaeology and the suitability for the project and final locations were chosen. On the site at Cirencester, trenches through the selected features have already been excavated and vertical profiles of TDR sensors installed in both the archaeological feature, and the surrounding soils. These sensors will measure and log soil moisture and temperature variations both within and outside the archaeological feature. The sensors will be installed in Diddington during May. The DART Project is an Open Science initiative. Where practicable all science objects (data, algorithms, etc.) will be made openly available. Ongoing development of our methodology is available http://dartproject.info/WPBlog/?p=174 and in the near future will be submitted to an open access methodology store for open critique and development (we have developed this resource in collaboration with the Open Knowledge Foundation and with the support of the Council for British Archaeology). This allows for broader dissemination of objects used in the generation of research knowledge. An open license means that the outputs can be reused in a broadly unfettered way (be that for research, teaching, personal edification etc.). This has the potential to dramatically increase the impact of the research both within and outside the traditional academic communities.