Reassessing Surface Artefact Scatters. The Integration of Artefact-Accurate Fieldwalking with Geophysical Data at Medieval Harbour Sites Near Bruges (Belgium)

Archaeological fieldwalking is particularly used to detect sites within a landscape, rather than to assess the internal structure of a site itself. Contributory to this trend is that surface artefact patterns collected by pedestrian field survey are rarely seen as valuable archaeological data for intra-site research. In recent decades, they have been overtaken by other non-invasive prospection methods, which seem to be more efficient and time-effective. This paper aims to reassess fieldwalking as a valuable intra-site prospection method and explores its added value when used in a multidisciplinary framework. The medieval lost harbour site of Monnikerede near Bruges (Belgium) is used as a first test-case. The site was subjected to a grid survey in 1985 and recently acted as the location for an intensive artefact-accurate fieldwalking survey as well as an extensive geophysical survey. Comparing the recent global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-underpinned fieldwalking survey results with a 10 m × 10 m grid survey from 1985, demonstrates the gain in knowledge and detail using the former method. The combination of both fieldwalking and geophysics showed both significant positive and negative relations between surface artefact scatters and subsurface anomalies, hence pointing to the complementary nature and added value of the methods being jointly applied. In addition, the combination of both techniques was tested on a second lost harbour site near Hoeke, to further evaluate the potential of the applied methodology. The results demonstrate that, although the sites have been heavily ploughed for decades, the lateral displacement of artefacts is limited and confined to the original medieval allotment. Finally the integration of surface artefacts with geophysical anomalies enabled to enhance the spatio-temporal interpretation of both sites. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.