Archaeological Prospection Forum

I am a geophysicist (pre-diploma from Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Diploma from Christian-Albrechts University Kiel, Ph.D. from Cambridge University), who got interested in geophysical archaeological prospection when conducting 15 months of civil service at the Bavarian Office for the Conservation of Historical Monuments (Bayerisches Landesmat für Denkmalpflege) in 1992 with Helmut Becker and Jörg Fassbinder. After starting to study geophysics in Munich I later moved to Kiel to learn in Harald Stümpel's group at Kiel University. After a Ph.D. in Exploration Seismology (seismic traveltime tomography) I moved for five years to Sweden, where I set up a geophysical archaeological prospection group within the Contrat Archaeology Unit of the Swedish National Heritage Board (now Arkeologerna). In 2010, I founded with colleagues in Austria the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology, where we developed and deployed motorized magnetometry and GPR systems for efficient large-scale high-resolution surveys across Europe. Since 2020, I am working as professor for geoarchaeology at the University of Vienna and am heading the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Sciences. My main interests are in improving efficient high-resolution imaging with GPR and SONAR systems, as well as integrating digital 3D surface mapping. Most of my publications can be found on ResearchGate.

Here a short Pecha Kucha Presentation I did a while ago.

NIKU's department for Digital Archaeology conducts research and development in geophysical archaeological prospection and digital archaeological documentation and offers surveys.

TigerGeo Limited in the UK offers geophysical archaeological prospection, environmental geophysics and training.

The Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project of the University of Southampton.

University of Southampton has created a digital twin of the RRS DISCOVERY.

The University of Bradford offers postgraduate MSc courses in Archaeological Sciences, offering among others the specualisation in Landscape Archaeology, focusing on understanding and interpreting landscapes in the past using prospection methods, visualisation and GIS.

Berlin based Eastern Atlas provides commercial geophysical archaeological prospection services.

Archeo Prospections by GeoSphere Austria provides professional geophysical archaeological prospection services, and research and development in this field.

Website of the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS), teaching and researching geophysical archaeological prospection methods, with a focus on  high-resolution GPR and sonar measurements.

Link to the Image Based Modelling software Agisoft Metashape.