In June 2011, Mark Graham and I were funded by Green Village "Sustainable Ancestors" to go to Sahy, Slovakia in order to test the geophysical technique of magnetometry in South Central Slovakia to see if it might be of use on future projects to try and increase understanding of known prehistoric sites in the area. It was also hoped that there would be the potential to demonstrate the technique in discovering new, unknown sites.

The site that was targeted was a small hill just outside Sahy that was to the south of an ongoing Bronze Age "Hatvan" excavation. The area on top of the hill known as Na Vrusku was targeted as during fieldwalking after ploughing, there were a lot of finds of both Bronze Age and Medieval date. Possible archaeological features could also be seen after the area had been ploughed.

The survey was carried out with gradiometers fixed to a frame which were then carried systematically over 20 x 20m grids that were set up all over the site. There was an area that we could not survey properly as a large area was covered by spoil from another site, preventing us getting a complete grid in that area. We were able to survey most of the hill top from the cliff edge as well as a strip down to the site of a Bronze Age excavation of a Hatvan site. When we went out, the Leonardo Da Vinci IVT group were due to start their placement, so we set up the grid and spent a couple of days training the students with the magnetometers. They were all shown how to use the equipment and were shown the results in the software, so got to experience surveying from start to the results.

Hatvan site at the end of the 2010 season (north west of the hill top)	Survey looking up (south) towards the hill top where the new site was discovered

The results after the first day were very promising and showed that the instruments were working perfectly. What appeared to be two ditches could be seen along with what looked to be features to the south of them. When the results were first processed, it looked like there may have been an entrance to the north as the ditches appeared to be interupted. Spurred on by these results, we finished the top of the hill the next day and were amazed by the results that showed an almost complete enclosure- the south side appears to be very close to the edge of the cliff where we were unable to survey. The gap in the results was caused by the ditches running in the traverse direction, so when the software used to process the results from both instruments cleaned up the image, it erased that part of the ditches. Mark looked at the data from each instrument separately and that is when it was realised what had happened and that the ditches were infact complete.

When Tibor Palinkas, the director of the LDV excavation, saw the results, he questioned whether there would be another ditch further down the hill between the site the LDV students work on and the ditch we had found during the survey. In order to see if there was anything else, the grid was exteded north down the hill and a line of the grid was extended down so that it was level with the current site. Unfortunately nothing showed up in the extension. The gas main line that cuts through the current open site shows up as a very strong signal and shows that the line does continue on towards the cemetery.

The report is available to view here

The results have proved that magnetometry can be used in the area to help further understanding of the prehistoric landscape of Sahy both with current sites and helping to confirm the existence of previously unknown sites. It is hoped that some trenches can be opened up on the new site at the top of the hill in order to establish dating evidence and to see if there is a link to the Hatvan site further down the hill.

Joanne Wilkinson 2011