GPR mapping of an Inca village in NW- Argentina

OSELLA, ANA; BONOMO, NÉSTOR; RATTO, NORMA

París

Congreso; Near Surface Geoscience, 18th European Meeting of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics; 2012

European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers

We present the results of a GPR prospection carried out at the archaeological site of Batungasta, located in NW- Argentina. This site was established by the Incas during the 14th century and was later occupied during the Spaniard conquest between 15th and 16th centuries. The environmental history of the location together with results from radiocarbon analysis led us to postulate that part of the Inca architectural arrangements were completely buried without surface visibility and that some Inca foundations were used by the Spaniards to build adobe enclosures over previous stone foundations.In order to provide further evidences of the architectural characteristics of the successive occupations, two sectors were surveyed using constant-offset between two 500 Mhz antennas. These sectors were covered following grids with cells of 0.5 m x 0.5 m. Analysis of data allowed recognizing electromagnetic patterns which could be associated to the presence of walls. In both sectors enclosures formed by probably adobe walls could be mapped. Also, buried continuations of exposed alignment were confirmed.