Time Change

Still archaeology, but we've moved from late bronze age, early iron age to the Neolithic. I had the chance to do some geophysical surveying at another nearby site. A favor to another local archaeologist, and the chance to see something cool.

 

This is a Dolmon. It is a neolithic burial site. These large rocks would have been covered with a large mound of dirt. The inside appears to have been painted red and black, and the body would have been buried in a pit dug within. This is apparently the largest in Galacia. Almost all of them have been looted. During a rough economic time people thought the Moors buried their treasure here. Totally untrue, but the mere hint of treasure always leads to looting. The soil here is also really bad a preserving bodies. From what I understand this one has not been excavated, and there is the possibility of another, still buried one, nearby. So we've been called in to survey and see if we can find it.

The entrance. They believe that these stones go down much further.

 View of the inside.

And here we are doing our surveying with the gradiometer. You can read all about it here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophysical_survey_%28archaeology%29
Thank you wikipedia, because I would not have been able to do it well. I've only had half a days worth of experience with the gradiometer.