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Geophysics: twenty-two sites have been surveyed in the course of this year's geophysical programme, in response to specific site management issues and as part of archaeological and geophysical research projects. Although geophysical evaluations of development sites are usually covered by contract surveyors in the normal course of PPG-16 procedures, EH assistance is sometimes necessary.
When Roman remains were unexpectedly unearthed during housing development north of Swindon, an urgently resistivity survey was undertaken in order to help the county archaeologist decide how to minimise damage. The survey successfully located a formal arrangement of buildings and enclosures which appear to represent a palatial residence or temple site. Negotiations are now proceeding to try to accommodate as much of the site as possible within open ground. Roman sites such as this are often highly responsive to geophysical techniques and good results have also been obtained at Ewell in Kent, Hinton St Mary, Dorset, and at Fawler and Nuneham Courtenay, both in Oxfordshire. At Wroxeter, the magnetometer coverage of the Roman city is nearing completion and continues to reveal astonishing detail. During Science and Engineering Technology Week (SET97), Wroxeter provided a perfect opportunity to engage public interest in our research work, and demonstrations of the use of various new survey and information technologies were held on the site and at the Education Centre. At Owmby, in Lincolnshire, magnetometer survey of 34 hectares has delivered a remarkably detailed image of a very complex palimpsest of settlement activity alongside Ermine Street, and has provided a base plan for the evaluation and research project being undertaken there by the CAS (see section 4.13 above). Such is the quality of the magnetic response that, in one instance, individual graves within a ditched inhumation cemetery have been clearly located.
During the summer, the first of two field seasons of the Wessex Hillforts Project (see section 4.20 below) was accomplished with the magnetometer survey of nine hillfort interiors. In each case important new information has been acquired and these results clearly demonstrate how such a project can benefit the future study, management, and presentation, of certain classes of monument.
Research into geophysical techniques has concentrated on the evaluation of highly sensitive caesium magnetometers, comparing the performance of these with fluxgate gradiometers, and tests were made at a number of sites as part of ongoing research. A project to assess the use of microgravity techniques was concluded with the successful detection of a buried void associated with an Iron Age fogou within a ploughed out settlement (Boden Vean, Lizard). Development of the Geophysical Survey Database is making steady progress, with information on over 1,000 surveys now available on the Archaeology Division WWWebsite at http://www.eng-h.gov.uk/.