This finding supported evidence from a limited excavation performed 20 years ago, which also suggested the village had been attacked. Items necessary for everyday life, such as tools, pottery and grain in storage bins, were found intact throughout two houses. But our images suggest that they later returned and built a new village on the same site with a more closely-packed configuration. This ability to view the layout of an archeological site before researchers remove the soil offers many advantages. The first such advantage is that it eliminates guesswork.
Archeologists can now be certain of digging in the right place.
And because excavation requires vast amounts of money and manpower, remote sensing has proven itself highly cost effective. In addition, remote sensing techniques enable archeologists to gather information in a non-invasive way. Some American Indian tribes resent the excavation of their ancestral grounds, said Kvamme, but electrical and magnetic imaging allows scientists to study sites without the possibility of damaging or disturbing them. In fact, Kvamme's team chose the Whistling Elk site because of its perilous location next to the shore of a Missouri River reservoir. Massive erosion had already destroyed portions of the settlement before government engineers stabilized the shoreline.