Field Survey and Site Prospection

Field survey and prospection are the largely non-invasive methods archaeologists use to discover, map, and characterize sites and off-site activity across a landscape before, or instead of, excavation.

Definition

The set of techniques for locating and recording archaeological remains across landscapes, chiefly through surface observation and collection, in order to study the distribution of sites and human activity rather than to excavate.

Scope

This topic covers extensive and intensive survey, systematic field-walking and surface collection, sampling design and survey intensity, off-site and siteless approaches to artifact scatters, and the integration of survey with aerial and geophysical prospection to reconstruct settlement patterns at a regional scale.

Core questions

• How can archaeologists detect sites and activity across a region without digging?
• How do survey intensity and sampling design affect what is recovered?
• How should surface artifact scatters be interpreted as evidence of past land use?
• How are survey results compared across different projects and regions?

Key theories

Intensive systematic survey

The approach, developed in Mediterranean and New World archaeology, of walking transects at close, controlled intervals to record all surface material, treating the landscape rather than the single site as the unit of analysis.

Off-site and siteless distribution

The view that meaningful evidence is not confined to discrete 'sites' but spread as continuous distributions of material across the landscape, requiring survey methods that record off-site scatters.

History

Survey moved from extensive site-hunting toward intensive, systematic methods in the 1960s and 1970s under the influence of the New Archaeology and its concern with settlement patterns, exemplified by projects in the Aegean, Italy, and the Americas. Comparison of these regional surveys later raised questions of method and comparability addressed in works such as Side-by-Side Survey.

Debates

Comparability of survey results

Because survey outcomes depend heavily on intensity, visibility, and recovery methods, scholars debate how far results from different projects can be compared and what counts as a real difference in past settlement.

Key figures

• E. B. Banning
• John F. Cherry
• Susan E. Alcock

Seminal works

• banning2002
• alcockcherry2004

Frequently asked questions

What is field-walking?

Field-walking is a survey method in which people walk across plowed or open ground in spaced lines, recording and sometimes collecting the artifacts visible on the surface to map past activity.

Why survey instead of excavate?

Survey is cheaper, non-destructive, and covers large areas, letting archaeologists study settlement across whole regions and decide where, if anywhere, excavation is warranted.