Driving archeological interpretation of geophysical data using 3D geomodelling

Paul Cupillard and Judith Sausse and Eva Despinoy and Thibault Fleury and Joseph Dogui and Raymond Éguin and Romain Baville and Louise Houbre. ( 2023 )
Lire le sol en arch{\'e}ologie : pratiques de terrain et regards crois{\'e}s / Reading the soil in archaeology: field practice and interdisciplinary perspectives

Abstract

Geophysical prospection methods make it possible for archeologists to investigate sites in a non-destructive way. They provide images of physical properties (electrical resistivity or conductivity, magnetic or gravity anomalies, seismic or electromagnetic wave velocity contrasts) of the underground over large areas. Interpretation of such images can reveal archeological and sedimentological structures, which helps in better understanding a site and/or estimating the potential of it prior to excavation. However, interpretation can be ambiguous due to i) the uncertainty derived from the imaging process, ii) the limited resolution of the obtained images and iii) the sparsity of the observations. In this work, we show how geomodelling tools can guide the interpretation of geophysical data. Relying on the Gombervaux case study (late Middle Age, France), we use Discrete Smooth Interpolation (DSI) to build triangulated surfaces in 3D from features identified on maps and vertical sections. Although developed for geological surfaces, DSI can model archeological structures as well if relevant data constraints and mesh resolution are chosen. The obtained surfaces lead to a 3D model of the underground, which considerably eases its understanding as compared to a purely visual inspection of the geophysical images. Moreover, such a model can be modified in a stochastic way to sample the uncertainties associated to the geophysical data.

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BibTeX Reference

@misc{cupillard:hal-04438003,
 abstract = {Geophysical prospection methods make it possible for archeologists to investigate sites in a non-destructive way. They provide images of physical properties (electrical resistivity or conductivity, magnetic or gravity anomalies, seismic or electromagnetic wave velocity contrasts) of the underground over large areas. Interpretation of such images can reveal archeological and sedimentological structures, which helps in better understanding a site and/or estimating the potential of it prior to excavation. However, interpretation can be ambiguous due to i) the uncertainty derived from the imaging process, ii) the limited resolution of the obtained images and iii) the sparsity of the observations. In this work, we show how geomodelling tools can guide the interpretation of geophysical data. Relying on the Gombervaux case study (late Middle Age, France), we use Discrete Smooth Interpolation (DSI) to build triangulated surfaces in 3D from features identified on maps and vertical sections. Although developed for geological surfaces, DSI can model archeological structures as well if relevant data constraints and mesh resolution are chosen. The obtained surfaces lead to a 3D model of the underground, which considerably eases its understanding as compared to a purely visual inspection of the geophysical images. Moreover, such a model can be modified in a stochastic way to sample the uncertainties associated to the geophysical data.},
 author = {Cupillard, Paul and Sausse, Judith and Despinoy, Eva and Fleury, Thibault and Dogui, Joseph and {\'E}guin, Raymond and Baville, Romain and Houbre, Louise},
 doi = {10.34692/dhmx-5428},
 editor = {Inrap and UMR CITERES-LAT},
 hal_id = {hal-04438003},
 hal_version = {v1},
 howpublished = {{Lire le sol en arch{\'e}ologie : pratiques de terrain et regards crois{\'e}s / Reading the soil in archaeology: field practice and interdisciplinary perspectives}},
 keywords = {geophysics ; geomodelling ; uncertainties ; Gombervaux ; Gombervaux ; g{\'e}ophysique ; g{\'e}omod{\'e}lisation ; incertitudes},
 month = {November},
 note = {Poster},
 organization = {{Kai Fechner and Judit De{\'a}k and Carine Carpentier and Olivier Blin and Philippe Husi and Morgane Liard and Jean-Baptiste Rigot}},
 pdf = {https://inrap.hal.science/hal-04438003/file/POSTER_24_Cupillard_Geophysical_data_3D_geomodeling.pdf},
 title = {{Driving archeological interpretation of geophysical data using 3D geomodelling}},
 url = {https://inrap.hal.science/hal-04438003},
 year = {2023}
}