Under Neath What?

November 10, 2023 12:23 AM

Seen through devices such as ground-penetrating radar or magnetometry, it is preservation, not ruin, that is the rule. Even the most temporary village or house—even the briefest of human lives—leaves a signature behind in the soil. The unexpected lesson of these new instruments is that none of us ever fully disappear. from Scientists Have an Audacious Plan to Map the Ancient World Before It Disappears [Wired; ungated] See also: Agency of the Subsurface [Geoff Manaugh's BLDGBLOG]
posted by chavenet (7 comments total)

I loved how ancient Mexico City was mapped using this technology.
posted by nofundy at 4:05 AM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I live on land that has only been permanently inhabited by people since the 1940s, and my house is only the second one to stand in this spot. It's amazing how many objects I have pulled from the ground that are relics of people who lived here before me. I can only imagine what it would be like for places inhabited for thousands of years.

It also makes me aware of the things I have been putting into the ground that will be relics of my existence in the future.
posted by betaray at 8:16 AM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Amazing. If this can be done now, imagine future technology archeologists will have at hand*. They will be cussing us for botching up their sites, just as we cuss the damage done by archeologists from the 20s.

*That's assuming the world doesn't go to hell in a handbasket thanks to shitty politics and greed, or climate change, which still comes down to shitty politics and greed. Lately I'm pretty pessimistic, although articles like this are a small glimmer in the day.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:23 AM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

In the late 1800's around 80% of Connecticut, including my property, was cleared for farming, and there are old stone fences everywhere, including deep in the woods.

Someday, I'm gonna rent a millimeter wave gadget and go looking for buried treasure on my property.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:29 AM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

This reminds me of the graphic novel Here where people in the future can look back at what happened at a specific location at different points in time.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:17 PM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

I find it interesting that there are Roman ruins in, well, Rome, that are sort of along the still lived-in streets of that city. But you move into Germany and you have Roman ruins that are buried well underground near the famed Cologne Cathedral. And up into England where things are are weird combination of on the surface and buried.

I guess I'm left to wonder, why are some things from the past still present on the modern day surface of the earth while others have been buried enough to be entirely untraceable without digging or imaging, but both are likely to have been around the same period of time?
posted by hippybear at 7:00 PM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I expect archaeologists have more detailed answers, but a geomorphologist would look at the surrounding landscape and water — erosion is generally wearing some places down while covering others up. But it’s still an interesting specific question because I still wouldn’t expect Rome to be surface-stable since what I know about it classically is hills, river, marsh, malaria, centuries of depopulation…. Was the hydrological engineering in ancient times so good it kept erosion slow for hundreds of un maintained years? Or slow it down enough that 18th c repopulation found it practical to restart at the old datum?

Also a fun excuse to refer to Darwin’s book on earthworms, which he started studying when he realized how few juman generations it took for a big stone to sink into a meadow. And again, why not Rome?
posted by clew at 10:40 AM on November 11, 2023 [2 favorites]