Shallow and ploughed settlement sites in forested environment: Opportunities to multilevel prospection (an example of a prehistoric site in eastern Lithuania)

• Published in: Archaeological prospection 2021-10, Vol.28 (4), p.583-599
• Main Authors: Simniškytė, Andra, Selskienė, Aušra, Vaičiūnienė, Jūratė, Pakštas, Vidas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agricultural management; Anthropogenic factors; archaeological survey; Archaeology; Excavation; Forests; geochemical prospection; Geochemistry; Iron Age; Iron Age settlement site; Land settlement; Lithuania; multilevel sampling; Polls & surveys; Stratigraphy; Urban environments
• ISSN: 1075-2196; 1099-0763
• DOI: 10.1002/arp.1831

This article presents the results of geochemical survey performed at one of the shallow and ploughed prehistoric settlement sites in eastern Lithuania. The goal of the survey was to delineate the territory of the prehistoric settlement based on a multilevel survey, and geochemical patterns were analysed relative to the stratigraphy of the site. This research explores how particular aspects of the built environment might be visible in layer‐specific data sets produced by soil coring and a range of different geochemical analyses and how the results from different levels correspond to each other and relate to test excavation results. The study also has value in adding to the discussion of the geochemical properties that could be indicative of prehistoric human activity in Lithuanian sites and how they contribute to understandings of the site's overall size and structural arrangement. The results have demonstrated the lack of consistent correspondence between layer‐specific geochemical data sets and calls into question the validity of single‐level surveys for ploughed sites. Distinct anthropogenic sediments do not always reproduce the expected elevation of the allegedly anthropogenic geochemical markers. A thick cultural layer could represent the traces of post‐deposition in secondary zones rather than primary occupied parts of the settlement. Conversely, the number of geochemical properties indicative of human occupation may survive in their original position in different strata even if the cultural layer is very fragmentary or not preserved.