New Philadelphia, Illinois was the first town platted and legally registered by an African American in the United States. Founded by Frank McWorter, a former slave, in 1836, this town grew as a demographically integrated community through the late nineteenth century. The National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) awarded funding of $14,800 to test the usefulness of low-altitude aerial surveys employing high resolution thermal imaging at New Philadelphia.

The success of this technique will provide an extremely useful resource for applications on numerous similar sites throughout the nation.

Getting archeology onto the silver or flat screen has always been a tricky proposition: you have to entertain, but stick to the facts, all without encouraging site looting. One of the programs that seems to have done it, at least in the U.K., is Time Team. And now it’s coming to the U.S.

As Kris Hurst put it on her About.com blog, Time Team America “brings a Mission Impossible team of professional archaeologists to a different archaeological site in the United States,” where they spend “three days at each site, bringing along a raft of cutting edge remote sensing and geophysical survey techniques.”

David Morgan, Chief of Archeology and Collections at the National Park Service National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, talks about the annual geophysics workshop course that we call Prospection in Depth

Limited seating is still available for this five day course at the Presidio in San Francisco from August 4-8, 2009. The tuition of $499 includes lodging in a historic barracks facility at the heart of the Presidio.

Register Online Today.

David W. Morgan, Chief of Archeology and Collections at NCPTT, introduces the 19th annual National Park Service Geophysics course taught by Steve De Vore. This video includes a description of the course and commentary by participants. Steve has assembled about 10 different instructors and about 18-20 participants that are providing classroom opportunities at NCPTT and are using Los Adaes as a field-training site.

Prospection in Depth 2009, a course in archaeological geophysics, will be hosted from August 4-8, 2009 in partnership with the Presidio Trust at the site of El Presidio de San Francisco, in California. Register for this course online.

NCPTT and the Presidio Trust will present “Prospection in Depth 2009,” a workshop on geophysical prospection on August 4-8.

This publication contains a number of readings that aid in the decision-making process involved with the discovery and evaluation of archeological sites.

Geophysical techniques like radar, magnetometry, conductivity, and resistivity are fast becoming essential archeological skills.

The Presidio Trust and NCPTT have agreed to jointly promote NCPTT’s “Prospection in Depth 2008,” a workshop that focuses on cutting-edge applications of geographic information systems and geophysical technologies for identifying archeological sites and site features.

On October 4, NCPTT hosted one of the statewide activities celebrating Louisiana Archaeology Week.

NCPTT hosted Prospection in Depth, a GPS, GIS, and Geophysical technologies workshop held June 18-23, 2007.

On April 26, 2007 NCPTT and the Archaeological Preservation Technology Research Consortium (APTRC) will host a symposium on archaeological remote sensing at the 72nd annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The APTRC was created with support from NCPTT, and its mission is to foster technology-oriented collaborations between universities and federal agencies with the [...]

The National Park Service’s 2007 workshop on archaeological prospection techniques entitled Current Archaeological Prospection Advances for Non-Destructive Investigations in the 21st Century will be held May 14-18, 2007, at the HAMMER Training Center, Richland, Washington.

NCPTT contributed funds to support the Midwest Archeological Center’s annual workshop on geophysical prospection.