GPR for Archaeology

comments from past participants in the Workshop

I definitely learned a lot from class and feel more confident in interpreting GPR data from many settings now. I appreciated that you had us share our results and talk about them and then we could share results that weren’t great, or that we had somehow ‘messed up’ and you and the others would help trouble shoot. It never felt like I couldn’t show my data even if it wasn’t as nice looking as other people’s.

• As someone who came to geophysics in a non-traditional way, I often felt that I was starting a few hundred (thousand) meters behind everyone else in the class. However, the amazing thing was that everyone was incredibly welcoming and supportive despite the amount of pure talent in the room. The collaborative nature of the class, along with the mini sessions and group work were so rewarding and allowed us to form cohesive (and disparate) theories, and friendships that I think will last throughout our careers.
• Every time we signed on together, I paused a moment to think about the fact that we were working with people from all over the world and from different companies and agencies, with different perspectives and levels of expertise. And, despite all that, we all had something to teach one another. It was an extraordinary experience, and I felt especially fortunate to have had a seat at the same table. I miss logging in each week and having like-minded colleagues to bounce ideas around with and work through interesting data sets.
• I especially appreciated your infectious enthusiasm for the science, the craft, and the work. Your dedication and willingness to be available to us when we needed you to help us solve the tough problems and make us think it through, and challenging us, not giving us the answers, helped us stretch our foundational knowledge. And your willingness to bring in other experts in areas that you were not enthusiastic about to help us with data we would inevitably encounter in our careers was humbling to see as well.
• We are all grateful for the generosity of your time and for sharing your amazing projects/work and fun/interesting data sets to play with. Even though most of the data we worked with were glamourous and fun, each scenario helped to show us different ways of thinking about data we encounter every day that may not be as glamorous or fun.
• The only suggestion I would have about a change for the class is that it often seemed like there wasn’t enough time. Initially, we had a ton of time to work through the first data set before the holiday break, then it was break-neck speed with each week that followed. Some weeks were more difficult to keep up with than others, based on the data set/problem and the “regular job” work schedule. I have no solutions for this, other than maybe having a bit more time between class meetings? Not knowing what I was getting into, I expected this to be a couple of extra hours a week of commitment, but it was much more than that (6-10 hours). I would not trade it in for the world because I learned so much, but I think people knowing that up front may be a good filter for those who may not be able to take on the extra commitment. Some weeks, I barely made it and felt that I was not able to give it my full attention.  Overall, this was a rewarding and wonderful experience that I feel privileged to have been part of. Because of this class, and the skills I learned from all of you, I am now able to be a more effective member to my team by helping with more complex GPR projects, from overall implications of a project as it is in the field to the final processing and presentation. I recently just wrapped up the first stage of an experimental GPR project in New Mexico, and we are both thinking differently about it because of the skills we learned in your workshop!

• As someone else said, I feel like I understand the limitations of different software MUCH better now, and that really there is no single software that can do everything I want it to do. This is also helpful in reading other people’s reports so when they talk about the software they used I automatically know some of the limitations they were dealing with in processing.

• One of the really nice things—for me at least—was that the workshop made me delve deeply into GPR processing in a way that I had not made time for before. I also appreciate the exposure to magnetometry and other programs, like Surfer. Perhaps naively, I had approached GPR processing thinking that software like Radan would be sufficient for any type of radar analysis. Learning about the other programs, or even analyzing data in Excel, could fill in the gaps was very edifying (I’m thinking specifically here of the cave project, which was definitely my favorite).

• I knew very basic GPR processing steps before this workshop and had little experience with data interpretation. After this workshop, I am much more confident in my abilities to process and interpret data on my own. I will be taking the concepts that were discussed in the weekly meetings and apply them to future projects.

• Overall, I thought the data you provided each week were really interesting. I only have looked at GPR data collected within the US, so I thought the international examples were very useful to see more of what features can show up in GPR data. My favorite weeks were when we focused on finding surfaces and using Surfer to create 3D maps of those areas. I had never used Surfer in that capacity, and I enjoyed learning the capabilities of that program.

• An excellent workshop! I learned ways of doing things differently and was able to compare my knowledge in the field with those who have other GPR specialists while observing how data processing is performed around the world. I also realized that I still have a lot to learn and that I must keep updating what I know.

• I learned so much in these last several months. I think my GPR skills have improved exponentially from this experience. I wish I had been exposed to GPR in this way back in grad school instead of getting introduced to it on the job. You made this very challenging, but I really appreciated that you allowed us to explore the data in our own way, make mistakes, and learn to defend our interpretations with sound reasoning. This has been a very rewarding experience.

• I learned so much about using, processing, and interpreting radar data. The breadth of datasets we got to work with played a significant part in expanding my understanding of GPR. GPR goes so much beyond simply mapping a site and is a tool for addressing specific research questions. The workshop encouraged me to critically examine the data using my understanding of geophysics – I found the canal project and the discussion of modeling particularly useful for this – so as to accurately interpret the datasets. By furthering my understanding of geophysics this workshop will help me better collect, process, and interpret not just GPR data.

• The workshop has had a significant influence on my professional and research directions

• It really opened my eyes on what is possible in this industry. From the different backgrounds of the different attendees, and how they came across their interpretations. And then utilizing your software, I learned how important it is to utilize multiple methods to view and analyze GPR data.

• The course helped me see different viewpoints as to interpretation, recognizing features, and gaining confidence in my own interpretations. I am so thankful that you put the effort into meeting up with us each week, to teach us. Its inspiring, truly.

• The course was really terrific; just invaluable for understanding how to analyze GPR data and reverse engineer reflections I see on screen. I feel like I learned how to use a variety of tools to approach analyses in ways that were new to me. This was a big confidence booster.

• I think it was a great benefit to my career and radar analysis skills. The ability to do this sort of thing well boils down to using a variety tools for different sites. The data was fantastic and offered a lot of opportunities to work with unique data in different areas. Hearing and seeing everyone’s varied approaches and logic was really beneficial too, and the open forum approach to allow for critiquing and building on everyone’s analysis was quite useful.

• I really have enjoyed the workshop. It has given me a much better understanding of the integration of multiple programs and their tools that can be used to filter the data to target feature specific attributes within the GPR data. After working through the wide range of projects and the variability of their unique environments, I have acquired a better skill set and have increased confidence in my approach to future GPR projects. I will be recommending this workshop, if offered in the future, to any of my colleagues. You made the hours of processing and squinting at my monitor interesting and perhaps even enjoyable.

• Thanks so much for this year’s GPR workshop. My GPR experience while working for a CRM firm is necessarily restricted to certain types of projects in a relative curtailed geographic area, so it’s been extremely helpful to be exposed to different types of projects all over the world. We also only occasionally get to ground truth our results, so it was especially illuminating to see excavation results in many of our sessions. While I was a little shy sharing my results, I did do all the analyses and found them interesting and valuable. It was also great to see and hear from other GPR users – sometimes it’s hard to get colleagues excited about radargrams!

• I really enjoyed the workshop and its openness to different ideas and perspectives. What you put into each week’s project is something that works quite well for a workshop like this. Small group work allowed for meeting new people in ways that the larger group may not have allowed for. I think the projects we worked on weekly were interesting and I believe there was more than enough information given as supplement to successfully finish each project within the week or so between meetings. I found it to be a great help in furthering my knowledge of geophysics, especially in the world of GPR. As well as furthering networking options with other geophysical professionals

• It has been a really nice opportunity to get a taste of that kind of classroom experience I was lacking. I had not realized how different the same data set can look in different software or how many “right” ways there can be to approach the same data. Frequency filtering was something I knew of but this workshop explained why to do this in what settings and to run with it in a knowledgeable way. I also particularly enjoyed having the opportunity to work with mag data sets in concert with the GPR. It’s much easier to learn complex processing and analysis with examples to work from rather than just applying theory on projects you hope are relevant. It was refreshing to see data that was something other than “maybe there is something here.

“I LEARNT A GREAT DEAL IN THIS WORKSHOP. THESE LAST THREE MONTHS HAVE BEEN AMAZING. MANY, MANY THANKS TO LARRY FOR SPENDING SO MUCH TIME DOING THIS. I ENJOYED BEING A GRAD STUDENT AGAIN!

• I ALSO WANT TO EXPRESS MY ENORMOUS GRATITUDE TO LARRY. THIS WORKSHOP CHANGED (IMPROVED) MY LIFE, NOT ONLY PROFESSIONALLY BUT ALSO PERSONALLY, IN A VERY SURPRISING WAY THAT I HAD NEVER IMAGINED BEFORE. IN THESE 3 MONTHS I WAS ALWAYS LOOKING FORWARD TO FRIDAY TO HAVE THESE MEETINGS. NOW, MAKING A COMPILATION OF WHAT HAS HAPPENED, I REALIZE THAT MANY TIMES WE FEEL IN A SEPARATE WORLD BUT THAT IN REALITY THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE LIKE US AND FINALLY SOMEONE (LARRY) HAD THE COURAGE TO MEET US.

• IN THIS LAST ZOOM MEETING, WE LAUGHED A LOT MORE THAN AT ANY MEETING BEFORE. MAYBE BECAUSE WE ARE SAD AND TRYING TO HIDE OUR FEELINGS. I DO NOT HAVE WORDS TO DESCRIBE MY FEELINGS NOW. LARRY, THANK YOU FOR ANY MINUTE YOU SPENT TEACHING US GPR. TODAY, I AM A NEW PERSON WHO CAN UNDERSTAND HOW GPR WORKS. MY VIEW ON THE INTERPRETATION OF GPR REFLECTIONS IS DEVELOPED. ALL THAT BECAUSE OF YOU. AND THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT I GET FROM THIS WORKSHOP IS ALL OF YOU. I MEET NEW WONDERFUL PEOPLES AND WORKED WITH THEM FOR THREE MONTHS. THANKS LARRY TO GIVE ME THIS OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPANT IN THIS WORKSHOP.

• THANK YOU FOR ORGANIZING THIS. IT HAS BEEN WONDERFULLY INSTRUCTIVE, AND I HAVE LEARNT MORE THAN I EVER IMAGINED THERE WAS TO LEARN. IT HAS ALSO BEEN GREAT TO FINALLY FEEL LIKE I AM PART OF A GPR COMMUNITY AFTER FLOUNDERING AROUND ON MY OWN. I APPRECIATE THIS GROUP ON MANY LEVELS!

• I’M VERY PROUD, HAPPY AND GRATEFUL FOR ALL THAT I LEARNED AND NOT ONLY ON MY OWN TOOLBOX BUT ALL THE GPR-RELATED CONCEPTS (ON BOTH WHICH I FEEL NOW MORE SELF-CONFIDENT AND INTERESTED TO GO DEEPER): IT HAS BEEN A FANTASTIC DIDACTIC EXPERIENCE OF LEARNING BY DOING WHICH I HADN’T DONE SINCE MY EARLIER STUDIES IN ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND NOT IN ALL MY PHD AND POSTDOC EXPERIENCES IN GEOPHYSICS.

• ESPECIALLY OUR LAST SESSION WAS REALLY AMAZING AND SHOCKING IF COMPARED FROM WHERE WE STARTED, ESPECIALLY THE PART OF THE SEDIMENTARY FILLING OF THE CAVE… SHOWING HOW REALITY CAN BE FAR FROM STANDARD INTERPRETATIONS, SOMETIMES (OTHERWISE THEY SHOULDN’T BE STANDARD OR COMMON!).

• IT’S BEEN A REAL PLEASURE, AND I HAVE GOTTEN A MUCH BETTER GRASP ON HOW TO USE GPR FOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS, WHICH IN TURN WILL LEAD TO GETTING BETTER AT INTERPRETATION. I AM VERY IMPRESSED BY THE RESULTS, APPLICATION AND ANALYSES PRESENTED BY ALL THE PARTICIPANTS. WELL DONE EVERYONE!

• I HAVE VERY MUCH ENJOYED THIS WORKSHOP EVERY FRIDAY. IT HAS GIVEN US FOOD FOR THOUGHT OVER THE WINTER MONTHS. I HAVE LEARNT A GREAT DEAL FROM THE ‘MASTER’. I HAVE LEARNT NEW WAYS TO ANALYSE AND INTERPRET THE DATA USING OTHER SOFTWARE THAN I KNEW.

• TODAY IS OUR LAST DAY AND I WILL MISS OUR INTERACTIONS ON LOOKING AT THE HOMEWORK YOU HAVE PROVIDED US WITH. THIS HAS BEEN CHALLENGING BUT HAS REAPED ITS REWARDS AS WELL BY UNDERSTANDING HOW TO ACHIEVE THE RESULTS AND LOOKING AT THE DATA IN NEW WAYS.ARRY FOR GIVING UP HIS TIME AND ORGANIZING THIS VENTURE. IT HAS BEEN A PLEASURE TO PARTICIPATE AND TO BE PUSHED TO EXPLORE DATA IN DIFFERENT WAYS AND FROM DIFFERENT SETTINGS. THE COURSE HAS BEEN INVALUABLE, AND I HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF GPR PROCESSING AND THEREFORE INTERPRETATION AND I ALREADY IMPLEMENTING THE KNOWLEDGE IN RECENT SURVEYS. EXPERIENCING DIFFERENT PROGRAMS AND WHAT THEY PRODUCE HAS ALSO BEEN VERY INTERESTING, WHILE GETTING A FULL KNOWLEDGE OF LARRY’S PROGRAM HAS BEEN FANTASTIC.

• THANK YOU, LARRY, FOR LETTING ME JOIN IN THIS WORKSHOP, I’M THE ONLY ONE WHO DOESN’T HAVE ANY BACKGROUND IN ARCHEOLOGY OR GEOLOGY, BUT I LEARNED SO MANY THINGS FROM YOU AND THE OTHERS. WHEN WE STARTED THIS WORKSHOP, I THOUGHT IT WOULD TAKE A LONG TIME TO FINISH, BUT UNFORTUNATELY TODAY IT’S FINISHED LIKE “SPEED OF LIGHT”.

• THANK YOU, LARRY, YOU’VE DONE AN INCREDIBLE SERVICE TO ALL OF US IN MAKING THIS WORKSHOP AVAILABLE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND EFFORTS, YOU’VE PROVIDED MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF DATASETS FOR US TO EXPLORE AND TALK ABOUT GPR. YOU GAVE ME AN APPRECIATION FOR ALL ASPECTS OF GPR, DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES THAT I HADN’T CONSIDERED, AND KNOWLEDGE AND CONFIDENCE TO APPROACH THE DATA IN A MORE OPEN/LESS FRIGID WAY. I LEARNED AN IMMENSE AMOUNT, AND REALLY ENJOYED THE DIFFERENT DATASETS, LISTENING TO OTHERS, AND THE PROCESS ITSELF

• LINKING UP WITH EVERYONE AROUND THE WORLD HAS BEEN GREAT AND I HOPE WE CONTINUE TO KEEP IN TOUCH WITH EACH OTHER. BEYOND GPR WORKSHOP ‘LARRY STYLE’, THIS WILL BE GREAT TO CONTINUE WITH OTHERS WHO WISH TO JOIN OUR GET TOGETHER EVERY COUPLE OF WEEKS OR ONCE A MONTH AND HOPEFULLY LARRY WILL BE ABLE TO JOIN US.

• LARRY, THIS COURSE HAS BEEN A REVELATION. I’VE GONE FROM BEING A GUY WHO USED SOME BASIC FILTERS BECAUSE I READ ABOUT THEM SOMEWHERE TO MAKE SLICE MAPS THAT I LOOKED AT FOR POSSIBLE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PATTERNS. THEN I BECAME SOMEONE WHO LOOKS AT INDIVIDUAL PROFILES, HAS A VOCABULARY TO DESCRIBE THEM, CAN UNDERSTAND HOW ACTUAL FEATURES IN THE GROUND MIGHT BE PRODUCING THE PROFILES, FILTERING BASED ON WHAT ACTUALLY NEEDS TO BE CLARIFIED (LESS MIGHT BE BETTER WHEN YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SEEING), AND PRODUCING SLICE MAPS THAT I CAN RELATE TO EXPECTED FEATURES AND NOT JUST PATTERNS OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN. AND NOW, THIS WEEK, I AM A GUY WHO CAN LOOK AT AN INDIVIDUAL TRACE AND SEE USEFUL STUFF LIKE PHASE CHANGES AND KNOW WHAT THEY MEAN.

• THANKS TO L.

• You did a wonderful job with your explanations on the fundamentals of GPR and an overview of your software at the beginning of the workshop, which I think laid down the foundation for the rest of the course. Lots of different projects to work on, some easier and some quite challenging (i.e., the Laetoli footprint hunt), which made the workshop continuously interesting. I also enjoyed the variety of software tools used by my fellow participants in the workshop, particularly Surfer and GIS products (ArcGIS or QGIS) for gridding.