Analytical Methods:Monitoring
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[edit] Monitoring
Monitoring is undertaken to evaluate change in the state of archaeological resources. Usually individual sites are monitored to assess their response to a specific anthropogenic intervention such as drainage and dewatering, or development and piling. However, monitoring can also be undertaken across larger regional and national scales in order to monitor more general changes in the threats to archaeological resources.
Usually monitoring involves indirect measures of the burial environments physical, chemical and biological properties, as the repeated physical intervention required to directly monitor buried remains can itself alter burial conditions in a way which may be harmful to preservation and invalidate the monitoring.
Click on the links in the table below to find out more about monitoring specific soil properties.
| Soil pH | Corrosion of artefacts, degradation of bone and other carbonates, change in microbial and biological activity |
| Soil moisture | Biological activity, oxidation |
| Watertable depths | Oxidation, shrinkage of organic deposits |
| Redox potential | Oxidation, biological activity |
| Compaction / Bulk density | Compression, increased erosion potential, surface lowering |
| Erosion | Physical destruction and surface lowering |
| Biological activity | Bioturbation, comminution and degradation of organic materials |
| Pollution | Corrosion of artefacts, masking of organic and / or inorganic signatures of past human activity in soil |
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