ABSTRACT
Near surface geophysical methods aim at the detection and mapping of shallow depth archaeological residues that are left from past anthropogenic activities. Dealing with the upper layers of the ground surface, the most challenging frontier of geophysical data analysis is to provide a clear image of the spatial (horizontal or vertical) distribution of archaeological remains.
The diverse nature of geophysical techniques requires dedicated processing algorithms according to the measured physical quantities, the fundamentals of physics behind the signal creation and the assimilated signals. Each method depends on different kinds of soil and target properties, which ultimately influence their penetration depth and resolution.
The impact of technological advances of recent years has resulted in a new generation of instrumentation and sensors that increase the efficiency, quality and speed of the acquisition of geophysical data. At the same time, the volumes of data generated by these more advanced and semi-automatic processes and workflows have increased dramatically, despite the fact that the basic procedures have remained the same.
This chapter will provide a summary of the above topics providing a review of the processing methods with a special focus on how they are employed in the archaeological/archaeo-landscapes domain.
