Quantitative Integration of Geophysical Methods for Archaeological Prospection S. PIRO,* P. MAURIELLO AND F. CAMMARANO Istituto per le Tecnologie Applicate ai Beni Culturali, CNR, PO Box 10 Ð 00016 Monterotondo Sc., Rome, Italy ABSTRACT Multi-method surveys have been used with the aim of detecting either sharp discontinuities (boundary of the cavity, fractures in the medium, etc.) or volumetric variations (bodies with different physical properties), at three different archaeological test sites. For the survey a com- bination of passive and active methods (magnetic, GPR and dipole±dipole geoelectric method) has been used. With all methods a high-resolution data acquisition method has been adopted with the aim of reconstructing a global vision of the area investigated. The enhancement of the processing technique towards the integration of different geophysical methods, enabling one to better de®ne the location, depth and geometry of any archaeological body, has been adopted. Copyright * c 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key words: applied geophysics; archaeology; ¯uxgate gradiometer; ground-penetrating radar; dipole±dipole geoelectric; integrated surveying; integrated elaboration Introduction, objectives and aims Ground surface geophysical prospecting methods have been used as valuable techniques for non- invasive detection of shallow-depth bodies of archaeological interest (Aitken, 1974; Linington, 1974; Hesse, 1991; Scollar et al, 1990; Hesse et al, 1997). This situation depends on the physical property contrast, generated by the buried struc- tures with respect to the surrounding medium. Generally the often limited size and depth of the archaeological remains, the presence of structures made with the same material as the host rocks, soil inhomogeneity and the environ- mental and anthropogenic disturbances, make it rather difficult to define the position and the extent because of the low signal-to-noise ratio (S/N). Some approaches have been considered, during the last ten years, in an effort to overcome such shortcomings (Weymouth, 1986; Brizzolari et al, 1992a,b; La Penna et al, 1992; Piro, 1996). They are based on improving data acquisition techniques and processing methods (Bernabini et al, 1988; Brizzolari et al, 1993; Becker, 1995; Malagodi et al, 1996; Tsokas et al, 1997; Mauriello et al, 1998); although many others have attempted to integrate different geophysical techniques (Brizzolari et al, 1992a,b; Bozzo et al, 1994; Camerlynck et al, 1994; Cammarano et al, 1997a,b, 1998; Neubauer et al, 1997; Piro, 1998a). The aim of the present work is to demonstrate the advantages of integrating the results obtained using different geophysical methods. The flux- gate differential magnetic (FDM), the ground- penetrating radar (GPR) and the dipole±dipole geoelectric (DDG) methods and their results have been integrated and used to investigate three different archaeological sites. Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 6 July 1999 Accepted 4 October 1999 Archaeological Prospection Archaeol. Prospect. 7, 203±213 (2000) *Correspondence to: Dr S. Piro, Istituto per le Tecnologie Applicate ai Beni Culturali, CNR, PO Box 10 Ð 00016 Monterotondo Sc., Rome, Italy.