Archaeological Field Survey - Extensive Vs. Intensive Survey

Extensive Vs. Intensive Survey

One way to classify archaeological field surveys is to divide them into two types: intensive survey and extensive survey. The former is characterised by the complete or near-complete coverage of the survey area at a high-resolution, most often by having teams of survey archaeologists walk in a systematic way (e.g. in parallel transects) over parcels of the landscape in question, documenting archaeological data such as lithics, ceramics and/or building remains. However, variations in artifact visibility related to topography, vegetation, and soil character, not to mention the imperfect detection abilities of human observers, bring into question the very concept of complete coverage. The Extensive survey, on the other hand, is characterised by a low-resolution approach over targets within a study area (sometimes including hundreds of km²). Sometimes this involves a random sampling or some other kind of probability sample to gain a repsentative sample of the study area. Extensive surveys may be designed to target the identification of archaeological sites across a large area, whereas intensive surveys are designed to provide a more comprehensive picture of the location of sites and the nature of off-site data (e.g. field systems, isolated finds, etc.). Intensive survey is the more costly, timely, and ultimately informative of the two approaches, although extensive survey can provide important information about previously unknown areas.