Gone are the days when archaeology was just a whole load of sand, dust, and bones. These days the real explorers are all about the robotics.
As technology has progressed, archaeological tools have become more sophisticated, including the potential to undertake scientific investigation with zero disturbances of the surrounding material.
With the use of “non-invasive archaeology” amazing discoveries can be made, such as the recent ground penetrating survey that appeared to indicate Shakespeare’s skull might not be in his tomb.
While these developments are all very useful, non-invasive technologies cannot, and never will, provide perfect resolution of the features within hidden spaces. Also, in many cases, there is still a need to physically extract samples for further scientific study—to perform carbon dating to determine the age of artefacts for example.
When Less Is More
It may well be that as in the case of Shakespeare’s skull, disturbance of a site is not allowed for cultural or religious reasons. But in situations where further investigation is permissible, the usual next step after a “big find” in archaeology is to create a hole large enough for humans to enter—though this often has enormous impact on the integrity of the site.
