TY - GEN
T1 - Resistivity profiling to delineate a Mississippian culture trail at the Emerald site, southwest Illinois
AU - Larson, Timothy
AU - Skousen, Jacob
AU - DeLucia, Michael
AU - Pauketat, Timothy
AU - Alt, Susan
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - High-resolution resistivity profiles support photographic evidence of a narrow, linear feature east of the Emerald site, a pre-Columbian Native American (Mississippian Culture) ceremonial site in southwest Illinois. Part of the Cahokia society, the Emerald site consists of one large and eleven smaller earthen structures built on a Quaternary-aged glacial ridge. A nearly kilometer-long resistivity anomaly stretches across 3 different farm fields, crosses 2 roads and is evident in both upland and lowland parts of the site. We conclude that this feature is man-made and pre-dates historical settlement. The most likely explanation is a trail constructed to bring pilgrims to the Emerald site. We acquired ten high-resolution shallow dipole-dipole earth resistivity profiles in farm fields immediately east of Emerald Mound. Short (150 to 160 m long) lines imaging the upper 2 m of soil were aligned at approximately 100-m intervals crossing lineaments which appear on air-photos of the site. Resistivity values are typically between 10 and 35 ohm-m but increase to 200 ohm-m on the sandy ridge slope. We expect that soil compaction associated with the ancient trail will result in localized increases in resistivity. After calculating 2-D inversions, we extracted normalized resistivity values at 43 cm depth on each profile. When aligned, a narrow high-resistivity anomaly can be traced from line to line across the array of profiles within the area of one of the lineaments evident on the air photos.
AB - High-resolution resistivity profiles support photographic evidence of a narrow, linear feature east of the Emerald site, a pre-Columbian Native American (Mississippian Culture) ceremonial site in southwest Illinois. Part of the Cahokia society, the Emerald site consists of one large and eleven smaller earthen structures built on a Quaternary-aged glacial ridge. A nearly kilometer-long resistivity anomaly stretches across 3 different farm fields, crosses 2 roads and is evident in both upland and lowland parts of the site. We conclude that this feature is man-made and pre-dates historical settlement. The most likely explanation is a trail constructed to bring pilgrims to the Emerald site. We acquired ten high-resolution shallow dipole-dipole earth resistivity profiles in farm fields immediately east of Emerald Mound. Short (150 to 160 m long) lines imaging the upper 2 m of soil were aligned at approximately 100-m intervals crossing lineaments which appear on air-photos of the site. Resistivity values are typically between 10 and 35 ohm-m but increase to 200 ohm-m on the sandy ridge slope. We expect that soil compaction associated with the ancient trail will result in localized increases in resistivity. After calculating 2-D inversions, we extracted normalized resistivity values at 43 cm depth on each profile. When aligned, a narrow high-resistivity anomaly can be traced from line to line across the array of profiles within the area of one of the lineaments evident on the air photos.
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U2 - 10.4133/sageep2013-105.1
DO - 10.4133/sageep2013-105.1
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84880537976
SN - 9781627483810
T3 - 26th Symposium on the Application of Geophysics to Engineering and Environmental Problems 2013, SAGEEP 2013
SP - 295
EP - 300
BT - 26th Symposium on the Application of Geophysics to Engineering and Environmental Problems 2013, SAGEEP 2013
PB - Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society (EEGS)
T2 - 26th Symposium on the Application of Geophysics to Engineering and Environmental Problems 2013, SAGEEP 2013
Y2 - 17 March 2013 through 21 March 2013
ER -