SASS – UMass Boston – Fiske Center – Archaeology

Blog of the Skagafjordur Archaeological Settlement Survey

Trying out the DUALEM

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John and Brian using the DUALEM-21 at Stóra-Seyla

Today we finished our first survey with the DUALEM-21.  This is just half of the 4-meter-long DUALEM-421 – the instrument that John brought on the bus from Reykjavik.  Tomorrow we’ll be surveying the grid at Seyla again in the opposite direction, and then we’ll take a look at the data.  We will probably be using the full 4-meter DUALEM-421 later in the season.

We’ve already finished surveying in both directions with the CMD, a smaller multi-sensor EM instrument (see the photo in the last post).  These multi-sensor EMs allow us to penetrate multiple different depths at the same time.  A single survey with the CMD gives us six complete data sets to analyze.  Preliminarily, what we’ve seen from the CMD data looks very good!

Today we are also welcoming the rest of our crew, who are joining us from Kenyon College – Dr. Kimmarie Murphy and two students, Hannah and Myra, who will be helping with the cemetery excavation and skeletal analysis as well as geophysical survey.  It’s great to have them here with us!

As for me, I’m thrilled to be back in Iceland again.  This is one of my favorite places in the world, and I have a really good feeling about this summer!

Author: Kathryn Catlin

Kathryn Catlin is an alumna of UMass Boston's Historical Archaeology MA program and a current PhD student in Anthropology at Northwestern University. Kathryn's research interests include the social and economic dimensions of settlement and colonization in Iceland, medieval England, and the colonial US. She is interested in developing survey techniques, including geophysical survey as well as more traditional archaeological methods, to describe relationships between the development of social inequality and the causes and consequences of environmental change. She has participated in numerous Fiske Center projects, including seasons in Iceland, Greenland, the Caribbean, and across New England.

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