I have followed the thread of the last few days with great interest and finally felt compelled to add my experience. I decided to cross-post it to ARCH-l and HISTARCH since the debate has spilled over to both. I believe Dwight Read responded cogently to the attack on the use of GIS in archaeology but I would like to address the question posed by Larry Mckee as to the use of geophysical remote sensing by archaeologists. For background , I am primarily a "dirt" archaeologist interested in the Middle Mississippian period in SW Indiana. I got involved in geophysical remote sensing because my lab had bought a gradiometer, resistivity meter, conductivity meter, and a SUN workstation the same year I showed up for grad school. The opportunity was there so I took advantage of it. I have spent the last six years doing geophysical surveys, trying to improve my field methodology and ground truthing the results. So, as an archaeologist I would like to point out some of my pet peeves as to how archaeologist deal with remote sensing surveys: (1) They fail to involve themselves at the beginning in the discussion of the survey methodology. Decisions as to the proper sample interval, or sensitivity level is left to the geophysicist, or technician, who may have no experience with the type of feature being sought or the specific geological context. Often this reticence is due to a sense of ignorance on the part of the archaeologist, but there are enough introductory articles available on geophysics to remedy that. There has to be archaeological inputfor an effective survey design. A one meter sample interval may be effective for a Roman fort but it is next to useless for most of the sites I have surveyed. (2) The Rorschach effect- I can't count the number of times I have handed a dot-density map to collegues and they immediately "see" houses, hearths stockade lines. I know archaeologists live on hope but there is a tendency to get carried away. I have an interesting resistivity survey map from a Mississippian site which I always have to remember to turn sideways during slide presentations since the dot- density map is a dead ringer for the Shroud of Turin! (3) The use of a proposed remote-sensing survey as a hook to get funding (4) The mistaken idea that remote sensing will detect all sub-surfacefeatures. As far as the use of geophysical remote sensing by my institution, at this point it has become a standard part of our pre-excavation strategy. This is due to the capital investment in the equipment and a familiarity with what a remote sensing survey will or will not tell you. I have had no difficulty in identifying sub-surface burned wattle and daub cabins or stockade trenches less than a meter wide. Under particularly favorable conditions, a light sandy soil matrix, a gradiometer survey identified every pit (17 in all) within the excavation area that contained over 100 grams of low fired pottery. On the other hand it completely missed a stockade trench which did not contain any magnetically enhanced material. At this site the geophysical surveys were effective at finding trash pits but were of no help in the detection of house floors. The prehistoric occupants were not courteous enough to use wall trenches or daub their structures. I have found that cross-referencing signals (in my case magnetic and resistivity) dramatically improved any attempt at feature interpretation. In regard to the detection of graves; why would you use GPR (expensive and complicated) when a resistivity survey (inexpensive and simple) would detect the same properties. I have only surveyed one cemetery, an early 19th century pioneer cemetery in Indiana. The location of the graves were quite obvious from a resistivity survey performed at a .25 meter interval. The main selling point to remote-sensing is not its economy or ease of use. Remote sensing is non-invasive and non- destructive. It often takes more time and money to do geophysical surveys than it would to swiss-cheese the site with a power auger. The auger survey would provide more accurate information as to sub-surface deposits and would also provide material remains for analysis. Geophysical surveys are tools that are among a suite of tools that archaeologists bring to bear on the archaeological record. GIS is a tool as well. I have been using a GIS system for the past six years. I have never published or given a paper on it because at this point I have not performed any analysis which was deserving of public perusal. The reason there is so much crap coming out in GIS applications is because there are too many archaeologists ignorant of its limitations and therefore incapable of constructive criticism. A poor GIS analysis can slide by in a way that a faulty statistical analysis or a flawed pottery seriation cannot. Sorry I appear to have rambled on a bit! Stephen Ball Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology Indaiana University