Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Did the GPR survey help?

Till Sonneman calibrating the Ground Penetrating Radar

While we were hoping to see coffin shapes or even skeletons in the Ground Penetrating Radar survey, that was not to be.
It is the nature of the site , we learned , that made it hard to get definitive
results. Rocks and trees were obstacles to nice straight grid lines and radar penetration. It seems that trees like to grow in grave sites, probably due to the seeds being caught in the hollow and water gathering there as well to nurture them. A number of graves seem to be backfilled or covered with rocks . So the GPR survey helps along with other methods; such as observation of the ground undulations and comparing it with graves at the main cemetery and probing with a steel rod to determine where the graves are located. It is probably always going to be difficult to identify infants graves, when there is no surface indicators.

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