CHANGING THE ROLE OF GPR IN CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

The application of Ground-penetrating Radar (GPR) is under utilized in the field of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) in the United States. The integration of GPR into CRM projects at the initial stages of site discovery (Phase I) or the determination of site integrity and significance (Phase II) is a benefit in the management and or investigation of archeological sites. With limited funds available, the use of GPR, when combined with other geophysical methods and GIS, provides a three-dimensional look at the spatial extent of the potential cultural features within the specific archeological site. The ability to define the three-dimensional spatial extent of features allows a project manager to identify the locations within an archeological site where the greatest volume of culturally related materials is likely to be found. By knowing where the greatest volume of cultural material is expected within a site, the project manager can determine the time and effort that is needed to extract the optimal amount of information from a site within a previously established budget or time frame. In contrast, there are several pitfalls that stem from the use of GPR on archeological sites. These pitfalls include the use of geophysicists whom have never been trained to work on archeological sites and a basic misunderstanding by archeologists of what GPR can and cannot do for them.