Hi-Tech Archaeology: Ground-Penetrating Radar—New Technology Won’t Make the Pick and Trowel Obsolete

“This is marvelous! You won’t have to dig anymore. You can just sit back in the shade and look at the pictures that machine will take for you.”

The visitor to our excavations at Lahav, Israel, last summer was looking at a ground-penetrating radar unit that was being pulled across the terrain near our excavation areas. Recently developed, this electronic equipment allows us to “look” below the surface of the soil to locate archaeological features.

Like many others when they first hear about this new archaeological tool, our visitor misunderstood what its impact would be on the digging process. If anything, ground-penetrating radar will lead to more—not less—digging.