This archaeology didn’t require any trowels or buckets of dirt. It did, however, require working in the baking summer sun in Natchez. A group from Ole Miss, led by professor Jay Johnson, was in Natchez Tuesday to do some work at the Forks of the Road, once the site of one of the South’s largest slave markets.

&uot;I don’t know just what we’ll find here, but it was definitely worth a trip to Natchez to find out,&uot; Johnson said.

The group, a dozen graduate and undergraduate students spending the summer, wasn’t doing conventional archaeology. Instead, the group used geophysical tools to map features in the ground without having to dig.

&uot;We’re doing four different geophysical techniques. It gives you an idea of what’s there without having to dig,&uot; Bryan Haley, the site director, said. &uot;It’s also a lot quicker than conventional archaeology.&uot;

The team set up a grid 20 meters by 20 meters and carried the tools methodically over the grid to take recordings.

Jim Barnett, the Historic Sites Director for Mississippi Department of Archives and History, said he’s pleased the group came to Natchez and is happy with the techniques they are using.

&uot;The good thing about this today is that they’re not disturbing any features with what they’re doing,&uot; Barnett said.

The group hopes the survey will help provide a further understanding of how the slave markets were set up and exactly where certain buildings were in pre-Civil War Natchez.

An 1853 map of the area shows several roads and where the old city limits, which the slave markets were just outside of, were, giving researchers a pretty firm idea where the site is.

The tools &045; a magnetometer, a conductivity meter, a resistivity meter and ground-penetrating radar &045; use different technologies to assess what is under the earth.

The magnetometer, conductivity meter and resistivity meter all use electrical currents or magnetic fields to detect certain features and artifacts in the ground.

The radar, which sends a radio signal into the ground and collects reflected waves, works much like that used to track planes, though on a different frequency. It is better than the other tools at seeing deeper underground, Johnson said.

&uot;The hardest part for me is that I could barely do high school physics,&uot; Johnson said. &uot;I don’t really understand how these tools work, but they’ve done amazing things for archaeology.&uot;

With all the information the tools collect a full map of the area will be made by combining the different data into one view of what is underground, Haley said.

Tuesday the group was collecting data for later analysis and interpretation.

Barnett has high hopes for the future of the Forks of the Road site, including possible excavation and

&uot;Eventually I’m hoping the property can be transferred to the National Parks Service as part of the Natchez National Historical Park,&uot; Barnett said. &uot;Then more work could be done here, maybe.&uot;