USING GPR TO DETERMINE BASELINE DATA FOR GRAVES FROM KNOWN AGES IN DOVER, TN

Application of ground penetrating radar (GPR) technology has occurred en masse in recent years, yet in the field of archaeology it is still somewhat limited. One application of GPR is the identification of gravesites. Example 3D GPR data for middle Tennessee for gravesites of known ages does not exist. We are collecting data from a graveyard in Stuart County, TN with graves that date back to the late 1700’s. We will generate attribute data and process it using the SIR-20 seismic data processing and interpretation workstation and RADAN 6.5 software. This will create a baseline library of profiles of gravesites of a certain ages, specifically those in the 1850-1880 C.E. range in a small church cemetery in Dover, Tennessee. Further studies will utilize these profiles to aid in the location, detection, and confirmation of unmarked graves from the Civil War era in Middle Tennessee.