Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 16611671

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Journal of Archaeological Science

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jas

Review

3D modelling of magnetic data from an archaeological site in north-western

Tlaxcala state, Mexico
Denisse L. Argote a, *, Andres Tejero b,1, Rene E. Chavez a, 2, Pedro A. Lopez c, 3, Roberto Bravo c, 3
a
Departamento de Exploracio n Geofsica, Instituto de Geofsica UNAM, Circuito Exterior, Cd. Universitaria, 04510 Mexico DF, Mexico
b
n de Ciencias de la Tierra, Facultad de Ingeniera UNAM, Circuito Interior, Cd. Universitaria, Mexico DF, Mexico
Direccio
c
Centro INAH-Tlaxcala, Av. Jua rez s/n esquina Insurgentes, San Esteban Tizatlan, Tlaxcala, Mexico

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In Archaeology, geophysical methods had been applied usually in a qualitative form, limited only to the
Received 10 December 2008 use of lters that enhance the data display. The main objective in this work is the implementation of
Received in revised form a modelling technique that allows us to reconstruct the geometry of buried bodies and the determination
8 February 2009
of their depths. This is done by means of the estimation of the magnetic moments of archaeological
Accepted 2 March 2009
objects using a three-dimensional mesh of individual magnetic dipoles using the least squares method
and the singular value decomposition of a weighted matrix to solve the linear problem. The distribution
Keywords:
and shape of the underlying archaeological remains can be inferred. This methodology was applied to an
Archaeological prospecting
Magnetometry archaeological site called Los Teteles de Ocotitla, in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico. A high-resolution
Magnetic dipoles magnetic prospection was carried out in three selected areas (terraces). The most important total eld
3D inverse modelling anomalies found on each area were inverted, obtaining results that were corroborated by archaeological
Central Mexico excavations. This investigation demonstrates the potential of quantitative geophysical methods for the
characterization of archaeological structures, in extension and in depth.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The archaeological site known as Teteles de Ocotitla is located
towards the northern hillside of the gully called La Caldera, within
the countryside towards the northeast of the volcano La Malinche,
in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico (Fig. 1). The site possesses a great
importance, since it was a primary pathway between the Valley of
Mexico and the sea to the east (Gulf of Mexico) during pre-Hispanic
times. This site is composed of several terraces with evidence of
human occupation, probably of the late Tezoquipan and early
Tenanyecac phases (contemporary to Teotihuacan I and II phases).
At rst sight the presence of several mounds, as well as some
exposed walls and oors, can be observed. An unpaved road crosses
the site, partially destroying the remains of a pyramid. There,
ancient features can be observed from the road. One of the upper
terraces was excavated by the archaeologist Garcia-Cook (1996) in
the decade of 1970, nding a tomb with nearly 300 offerings. He
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 52 55 56 22 41 47; fax: 52 55 56 75 00 29.
E-mail addresses: efen@yahoo.com (D.L. Argote), tandre@cancun.-a.unam.mx
(A. Tejero), exprene@igeofcu.unam.mx (R.E. Chavez), dplopez@prodigy.net.mx
(P.A. Lopez), robracast@hotmail.com (R. Bravo).
1
Tel.: 52 55 56 22 0851.
2
Tel.: 52 55 56 22 41 47.
3
Tel.: 52 246 468 41 69.
reported that this tomb had the form of a rectangular room, whose
oor, ceiling and walls were constructed with slices of tuff, a char-
acteristic rock of this region.
The Earths magnetic eld can be slightly perturbed by magnetic
bodies related to archaeological structures, such like pottery, kilns,
foundations, walls, and other architectonic elements built with
rocks with appreciable concentrations of ferromagnetic minerals.
Soils altered by human settlements or burial features also show
a certain variation of the background values of magnetic suscepti-
bility. The physical characteristics of the ground of the archaeo-
logical site of Los Teteles (basalticandesitic rocks employed as
construction materials buried within sedimentary soils and rela-
tively at terraces with small-scale surface roughness due to plow
furrows) allowed us to design an investigation using magnetic
methods (Total eld and magnetic gradient). Furthermore, the
subsequent 3D modelling of the resulting data, which is going to be
described later in this article, helped us to achieve a better under-
standing of the distribution and the geometry of buried archaeo-
logical remains.
2. Geological setting
As in every geophysical investigation, it is important to perform
an initial geological analysis of the area in order to evaluate the

0305-4403/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jas.2009.03.004
1662 D.L. Argote et al. / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 16611671

Fig. 1. Location of the archaeological site of Los Teteles de Ocotitla within the NE portion of Tlaxcala State.

most suitable methods and parameters for an adequate geophysical
prospection to be applied. In this case, rocks of volcanic and
lacustrine origin of Tertiary age are found within the area of study.
Fig. 2 depicts a simplied geology of the NE portion of the state of
Tlaxcala (INEGI, 2006). The volcanic rocks are mainly basalts and
tuffs of andesitic composition. Reduced extensions of the sedi-
mentary rocks are found within the lower parts of the slope ranges.
These consist of conglomerates and alluvium. The stratigraphy of
this portion of the state is largely limited to deposits of Tertiary age
that correspond to andesitic rocks, which are widely distributed
within the axis of the Transmexican Volcanic Belt. This WE feature
bisects the Mexican territory. The Quaternary age is represented by
basaltic deposits distributed as lava ows and volcanic cones. The
Malinche volcano located to the S of the city of Huamantla is an
example. The andesitic tuff of Pleistocene age is widely distributed
and forms the lowlands extending over most of the state of
Tlaxcala.
3. Archaeological background
Los Teteles de Ocotitla is one of the few archaeological sites at
the NE of Tlaxcala state that are still in good physical condition. This
site had a very strong Teotihuacan inuence during pre-Hispanic
times, but its pottery possesses few varieties proceeding from the
Gulf of Mexico, as well as some local types. The site is placed near
an ancient corridor that was under the Teotihuacans domain
(Garcia-Cook, 1997a; Garcia-Cook and Trejo, 1997). Through this
pathway many products were carried from the Gulf of Mexico to
Teotihuacan city and vice versa. This site has been classied as a big
concentrated village whose function was to control the access
through this corridor (Garcia-Cook, 1997b), although this assump-
tion is not completely veried.
During the excavation carried out by Garcia-Cook and his team
in 1974 (Garcia-Cook, 1996), a very important multiple burial is
depicted in their ndings in the excavation of one of the upper

Fig. 2. Simplied geology from the NE portion of Tlaxcala State taken from INEGI (2006).
 D.L. Argote et al. / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 16611671
Fig. 3. Drawing of the tomb discovered by Garcia-Cook and his team in 1974 (Garcia-Cook, 1997b).
terraces of the site. A tomb of basalticandesitic worked stones
forming a room with a rectangular base and lid containing 7
primary burials and 7 secondary burials and more than 300 offer-
ings with Teotihuacan afliation were found. The spatial dimen-
sions of this tomb were around 2.10 m by 1.45 m in its maximum
length and width respectively, and 1.50 m tall. It was buried
between 50 cm and 1 m below surface, depending on the position
of its walls within the terrace (Fig. 3). The chronology assigned to
the objects associated with the tomb was between the years 50 and
200 B.C. (Pen a Gomez, 1997), during the local cultural phases of
Late Tezoquipan and Early Tenanyecac and contemporary to the
Teotihuacan phases I and II, also known as Patlachique, Tzacualli
and Miccaotli phases (Garcia-Cook, 1997a). Some pottery found
inside the tomb corresponded to ceramic types imported from
Teotihuacan, some others corresponded to imitations of the Teoti-
huacan, the Gulf of Mexico and Cholula types.
Nowadays, pyramidal structures with variable sizes can be
observed all around the site, mounds ranging between 1 m and
10 m tall. This place has suffered several res and has been exposed
to a high degree of erosion and systemized destruction with the
course of time, leaving uncovered several archaeological structures
(walls, oors, etc.). The looting by local villagers is also a common
factor in this site, leaving exposed several red-brownish clay oors.
All these were important reasons that added to the necessity of
Fig. 4. The area of study is found within a series of man-made terraces (M1 to M5).
Triangles depict the location of pyramid remains. Terrace M5 is particularly important
since Garcia-Cook (1997b) carried out here the rst archaeological investigation in this
site, discovering an ancient tomb (image generated by Google-Earth, 2006).
1663
exploring this site again but with newer high-tech methods that
allowed us to rescue the most information possible in a quicker and
efcient way. Our principal goal was to contribute to and enlarge as
much as possible the specic data of the site, especially that con-
cerning the constructed elements, the architectonic features and
the spatial distribution of the structures. Also, the application of the
geophysical methods allowed us to obtain a broad image of the site,
useful for future effective archaeological excavations.
Thus, a high-resolution magnetic eld survey was carried out on
the terraces shown in Fig. 4. The geophysical study covered several
portions of the archaeological site (terraces M1, M2, M3, M4 and
M5), as shown in Fig. 4. This area depicts several human-made
terraces, dedicated to agricultural use at present. Terrace M5 is
particularly interesting since Garcia-Cook (1996, 1997b) excavated
it in 1974. The equipment employed was a GEM-GSM19W
magnetometer with a resolution of 0.0015 nT. Continuous obser-
vations were made along NS oriented transects. The geographical
position of every station was obtained with a GPS system integrated
to the magnetometer. The resulting data was corrected for diurnal
variation using the data coming from the magnetic base of Teo-
loyucan, and for the proper IGRF model for the coordinates and date
of the surveyed area. The IGRF also provided us with the Magnetic
Fig. 5. 3D orthogonal grid. Each elemental cube contains a single magnetic source.
1664 D.L. Argote et al. / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 16611671
Fig. 6. Position of the vectors with respect to the dipole and the observation point.
Inclination and Declination angles (47 380 and 5 240 E of
geographic N, respectively for our site), necessary for the following
3D inversion modelling.
4. Magnetic data 3D inverse modelling
The numeric modelling is a process that allows us to determine
the physical response of the underground structures or bodies. In
other words, this is a trial and error methodology where we can
approximate a mathematical model that best explains the data,
providing us with a better understanding of the subsurface. One
way to face the problem of modelling a heterogeneous body is
dividing the region containing the sources into a series of prisms in
a 2D or 3D orthogonal grid, depending on the problem to be solved,
assigning a constant magnetization value (M) for each cell or cube.
However, the resolution of these rectangular prisms employing
published mathematical expressions (Sharma, 1986), is not a trivial
task. Several authors (Li and Oldenburg, 1996; Fedi and Rapolla,
1999; Portniaguine and Zhdanov, 2002; Pignatelli, 2004) have
reduced the analytic expression given by Sharma to the eld
produced by a magnetic dipole, reducing machine time and
increasing the depth resolution. Thus Li and Oldenburg (1996)
Fig. 7. Magnetic anomalies map of terrace M3. The anomaly isolated for the inversion purposes is in the dashed line rectangle.
proposed that any eld measured at the earths surface can be
reproduced by an innitesimal thin layer of magnetic dipoles
beneath the surface, making the magnetic eld calculations easier.
Most authors agree in using a 3D orthogonal grid with a dipole
positioned in the center of each cube (Fig. 5), assuming a constant
magnetic susceptibility for each one with no remanent magneti-
zation present. Therefore, only inductive magnetization produced
by the geomagnetic eld is assumed to be present.
It is important to note that the dipole approximation is only
valid when the distance between the observation point and the
source is greater than the source size. This condition would be
satised if we select a relatively small cell size. However, if we
employ an innitesimal thin layer of dipoles, this would imply that
there would be no depth resolution inherent to the eld data. This
common approach of studying the bodies as if they were located at
the surface can be improved by introducing a weighting function to
the depth in order to counteract the natural decay of the magnetic
eld. Therefore, the introduction of a numerical factor that
compensates this decay could give to the 3D cells located in
different depth positions the same probability of nding a non-zero
susceptibility solution. In this work, we expand upon several ideas
mentioned in previously published investigations.
It is well known that the magnetic eld potential 4 along
direction R, due to a body with volume V and a uniform magneti-
zation M through all the body, can by estimated by equation (1):
Z
1 !!0  0 1
4!
r M r $V ! ! dv (1)
4p R r ; r 0
V
!
where, for this equation, r denes the position vector of a eld
!0
point and r is the position vector of a point inside the body. To
avoid the calculation of the volume integral, it is considered that
in the center of each elemental cube is a dipole, so that the
dimensions of the body are negligible with respect to the
observation distance and the external eld can be represented
by a dipolar eld. It is also assumed that there is no remanent
magnetization and that there is no interaction between the
cubes. Then, the geometry of the volume is substituted by
 D.L. Argote et al. / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 16611671 1665

Fig. 8. Magnetic anomaly corresponding to terrace M3: (left) Observed data, (right) estimated magnetizations obtained after the inversion (the white square species the position
of the 3D grid).

a single dipole and the magnetization due to the volume would This would be the contribution of the ith magnetic dipole. The
!
be the magnetic moment m , giving us the next equation of the Geometry Factor can be dened in agreement with the last equa-
potential: tion (4) as:
! ! ! !  " "! #! #
1 m$ru r; r0 2
4!
r ! ! (2) 1 ! R i;j
4p R2 r ; r 0 Fi;j 3 n t$ 1 (5)
4pR 3i;j Ri;j
R!! ! ! !
where M r 0 dv m , m is a constant vector, and r u is the Fi;j only involves the geometry elements: dipole position, magnetic
V
unitary vector. In this fashion, the magnetic eld due to a dipole moment direction and the observation point. Finally, the volume V
could be nally expressed like (Argote, 2008): is divided into a group of prismatic subvolumes, where
P
N Nx  Ny  Nz, so that N i 1 V i V (Fedi and Rapolla, 1999). If
* ! ! we consider elementary cubes in a uniform direction of the
!! ! 1 m$ r u
H r V4 r V magnetization, the equation that computes the magnetic eld of
4p R 2 ! !
r ; r 0
! a given joint of magnetized blocks can be written as
! *
1 3ru * ! m
m$ R  (3)
4p R 4 ! !
r ; r 0
! !
R3 r ; r 0   N
X   N
X
DT rj DT i !
rj Fi;j mi (6)
! !
where R j R j is the module of the vector of relative position, r 0 is i1 i1
! ! !
the position vector of the dipole source and r u R =j R j is a unitary where mi is the module of the magnetic moment of the ith block, N
vector (Fig. 6). Expanding equation (3) and only considering induc- is the number of blocks, rj is the jth observation point and Fi,j is the
! !
tion magnetism in the Earths eld direction ( m m m u , being Geometry Factor. This is a reasonable approximation when
!
the unitary vector in direction of the magnetization m u equal to the a constant total magnetic moment is considered for each cube.
!
unitary vector in the direction of Earths magnetic eld n t ), we Observe that expression (6) provides a solution with no restriction
obtain the result that the Total Magnetic Field for the jth observation on the depth at which each cube is found. To overcome this
point can be explained as (Argote, 2008): problem, a weighting function capable of taking into account the
decay of the magnetic eld with depth is introduced (Li and Old-
  ! 1  ! ! ! !  ! ! 
DTi rj H j $!
n t 3 n t $ r ui;j r ui;j $ n t  n t $ n t m enburg, 1996).
4pR3i;j It is very well known that every elemental cube acts like
" a dipolar source and that its magnetic eld decays as
!! 2 #
1 ! R
3 n t$ 1 m (4)
4pR3i;j Ri;j Magnetic decay zi z0 3 (7)
1666 D.L. Argote et al. / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 16611671

Fig. 9. Graphic of the spatial distribution of the magnetizations obtained after the inversion of terrace M3 anomaly corresponding to various depths.

0
where zi is the ith dipole depth and z0 is the depth position of the m V*L *UT *T (11)
observation point, being the last variable placed just on the Earths
surface so that Z0 0. We propose the inverse of equation (7) as our The resulting parameters m are then multiplied by the
weighting function weighting function corresponding to their depth position wzi ,
in order to obtain the weighted magnetic moments for each dipole
wzi z3i (8) P

using it to multiply and divide each term of equation (6), so that the
P m*wzi (12)
magnetic eld can be expressed in its lineal form as

M
Through this procedure, a geometric distribution of the
  X !
DT rj wzi Fi;j m i (9) magnetizations with depth resolution is acquired for each block,
i1 this values being the best suited to the anomalous eld. In synthetic
! experiments made in software specially designed by us to process
where m i mi =wzi . The matrix form of the set of equations the above calculations, we established the following conditions:
can be seen in the next example, where the expression for a three
unknown parameter vector can be solved as: 1. A homogeneous body can be well represented by a smaller size
2 obs 3 2 3 cube.
T1 F1;1 z31 F2;1 z32 F3;1 z33 2 3
2. This method is precise at any latitude.
6 Tobs 7 6 F z3 7 m1
6 2 7 6 1;2 1 F2;2 z32 3
F3;2 z3 74 m 5 3. The size of the elementary cubes must be greater than or equal
4 5 4 5 2
m3 to the distance between the observation points.
obs
TM F1;M z31 F2;M z32 F3;M z33
4. The grid center must match the inection point of the studied
magnetic anomaly in the XY plane.
Its general form would be represented by
5. It is better to sacrice spatial resolution (dimensions of the
T Fm (10) elemental cube) than total area.
6. Although this method is very sensible to the position of the
where F is the matrix of the geometry factors at each observation dipoles, a very accurate approximation of the geometry of the
point, m is the unknown parameter vector and T is the magnetic anomalous bodies can be computed.
eld observation vector. The estimation of the unknown parameter 7. The number of observations in the surveyed area must be at
vector is solved by a linear inversion approach through the Inverse least double the number of the elementary cubes in order to
Generalized Matrix method (Meju, 1994) avoid the solution of an underdetermined problem.
 D.L. Argote et al. / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 16611671 1667

5. Results of the inversion of the magnetic data correlated to

the archaeological excavation

Since the surveyed terraces didnt have a perfect rectangular

form, necessary for the inversion program, it was decided to isolate
a rectangular area where the magnetic anomalies stand out more.
Regular grids were introduced to the 3D modelling program. At the
same time, a resampling of the observation points was performed
in order to avoid the solution of the over-determined problem. A
detailed analysis of the magnetic maps of all the surveyed area was
made prior to the selection of the magnetic anomalies to invert.
Three of the most prominent anomalies were chosen to carry out
the 3D inversion modelling: one from terrace M1, one from the M3
and one from the M5 terrace, where excavation followed. The rest
were not modeled for the purpose of this paper. In order to
determine the proper origin of the 3D grids, the coordinates cor-
responding to the center of the anomalies (point of inection) were
calculated from the magnetic maps. At the same time, these central
coordinates dened the locations in which we should initiate the
archaeological excavations.
The rst inverted anomaly came from terrace M3 (Fig. 7).
Around its most relevant anomaly, we delineated a study area of
about 5 m  9.5 m, whose origin was established at the UTM
coordinates of 617329 mE and 2151551mN. The interval between
observations was 25 cm, giving us a good observation density (819
points). Centered in this area, a 9  9  4 elemental cubes grid was
set (to avoid the solution of an underdetermined problem), with
25 cm long cubes buried at a depth of 50 cm. Fig. 8 illustrates the
comparison between the values of the observed anomaly and the
anomaly estimated by our inversion program, showing us their
close similarity. The presence of an inverted anomaly can be clearly
Fig. 10. Photo of the kiln found in the archaeological excavation of terrace M3 seen (positive pole above and negative pole below), which can be
anomaly. explained in general terms by the presence of a body with high
contents of remnant magnetization or by a void within a highly
magnetized body (Arzate et al., 1990).

Fig. 11. Magnetic map anomaly of terrace M1. The isolated modeled anomaly is in the rectangle dened by a dashed line.
1668 D.L. Argote et al. / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 16611671

Fig. 12. Comparison between the observed (left) and the inverted data (right) of terrace M1 isolated anomaly. The white square species the position of the 3D grid.

Fig. 13. Graphic of the spatial distribution of the magnetizations obtained after the inversion of terrace M1 anomaly analogous to various depths.
 D.L. Argote et al. / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 16611671
Fig. 14. Photo of the pyramidal body showing several construction phases, found in
terrace M1 archaeological excavation.
The inverted model for this anomaly (Fig. 9) depicts a body with
a rectangular form and rounded corners, and a less magnetic center.
The zone of inuence of the body covers an estimated area of
1.2 m  1 m, and was located at an approximate depth of 70 cm.
This model and the estimated spatial coordinates of the observed
anomaly were used to locate a 4 m  4 m excavation unit during the
archaeological work season. Around a depth of 73 cm, the rectan-
gular base of a 110 cm by 80 cm kiln was found (Fig. 10). The kiln
had rounded corners and was made of burned clay and its surface
covered with lime, which explains the inverted anomaly. As can be
seen, the excavated body ts perfectly the inverse model projected
for this anomaly.
The second inverted anomaly is from the upper corner of terrace
M1 (Fig. 11). Starting from 617399 mE and 2151573 mN UTM
coordinates, we selected an area of 15 m  16 m, using a 25 cm
separation distance between observation points (giving us
a density of 3965 observation points). Centered in the anomaly, an
11 15  6 elemental cubes grid was placed, starting at a depth of
50 cm and using a length of 50 cm per side per cube. As can be seen
Fig. 15. Terrace M5 magnetic anomalies map. A superposed topographic map (taken from Garcia-Cook, 1997b) shows the position of the excavated tomb correlated to the magnetic
anomaly.
1669
in Fig. 12, the anomaly calculated from the inverted magnetic
moments and the observed anomaly are practically equivalent. The
resulting magnetizations of the inversion for each dipole are shown
in Fig. 13. The rst three slices (Z 30 cm until Z 1.30 m) show the
presence of several diagonal bodies (possible walls) placed side by
side with a NWSE orientation. These walls tend to fade away with
depth, estimating the base of the body approximately at a 2.30 m
depth. In the archaeological excavation of this small area, we found
part of the body of a pre-Hispanic pyramid with at least four
construction phases oriented in a NWSE direction (Fig. 14), which
explains side by side diagonal bodies dened by the inverse model.
Due to limited time and funding, the excavation unit covered only
a small portion of the pyramidal structure, and did not reach its
base. Thus, the depth to the base determined by the inversion could
not be veried. Uncovering the whole structure will be left for
future investigations.
The last inverted anomaly came from terrace M5 (Fig. 15). We
selected the anomaly that corresponded to the position of tomb
discovered by Garcia-Cook and his team in 1974. The records of
Garcia-Cooks archaeological investigation were available for
comparison with our modelling results. For the inversion, an area of
7.5 m  6 m was selected from the magnetic anomaly map, locating
its origin in the UTM coordinates of 617531mE and 2151689 mN.
The separation distance between marks was 10 cm, giving us a total
density of 4636 observation points. In the same manner as the
other examples, we positioned a 13  11  6 elemental 3D grid of
cubes at the XY center of the anomaly, placed at the surface and
using 50 cm long per side cubes. Fig. 16 shows the close t of the
observed and the estimated magnetization values.
The spatial distribution of the magnetization values for each
inverted dipole is depicted in Fig. 17. Garcia-Cook (1997b) and
Garcia-Cook et al. (1997) describe the discovery of 2.10 m  1.45 m
rectangular based tomb (see Fig. 3) built with worked volcanic
rocks, located at a mean depth of 2 m. Around the tomb were traces
of clay oors and several secondary human burials. After all the
archaeological artifacts and bones were recovered, they proceed to
cover up the tomb again with the rocks and the soil took from it,
leaving the architectonic remains unmodied (except, naturally, for
the tombs roof). Upon examination of the graphic of the spatial
distribution for the magnetizations obtained from the inverted
dipoles (Fig. 17), the shape of a rectangular room can be clearly
1670 D.L. Argote et al. / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 16611671

Fig. 16. Comparison between the observed (left) and the estimated data (right) of terrace M5 isolated anomaly.

seen, similar to the tomb. The dimensions of this modeled room are
larger than those described by Garcia-Cook. This can be explained
by the fact that Garcia-Cook, when he excavated the tomb, placed
a lot of the same basaltic rocks around and inside the tomb. Finally,
he covered all, including the walls, with soil. This can produce the
effect of false walls in the magnetic investigation, since they are also
highly magnetic bodies with an orientation similar to the archae-
ological walls.
This survey shows the importance of quantitative geophysical
methods for the identication of archaeological structures, in
much more detail than the simple graphical display of the total
eld or magnetic gradient anomalies. Furthermore, the method
proposed here is useful in determining the shape of complex and
heterogeneous bodies better than traditional modelling methods.
In the archaeological site, the efciency of the magnetic method
was also due to signicant contrast in physical properties, like
highly magnetic archaeological structures buried in non-
magnetic soil. The signicance of the site was also demonstrated,
with the discovery of meaningful archaeological structures like
the pyramid with several construction phases or the outdoor

Fig. 17. Map of the inverted magnetizations in terrace M5 obtained at different depths characterizing the tomb discovered by Garcia-Cook in 1974.
 D.L. Argote et al. / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 16611671
kiln. An integral study of the physical and historical character-
istics of each site is always indispensable for a good and effective
investigation.
6. Conclusions
The magnetic prospection of a pre-Hispanic site combined with
the application of an innovative 3D inversion modelling allowed us
to dene the size and depth of architectonical structures of
archaeological interest. The magnetic data depicted a series of
dipolar anomalies related to important archaeological remains,
such as kilns, walls and a pyramid base. The 3D modelling proposed
in this work was demonstrated to be a versatile and very accurate
tool to reproduce the shape of heterogeneous underground bodies.
The information provided by this means was important for the
interpretation of the site according to the spatial distribution of
archaeological elements and for positioning the excavations carried
out on the site. The investigation developed demonstrates that,
with a suitable strategy of investigation and previous knowledge of
the zone, the geophysical methods and mathematical techniques
are effective and valuable tools in the archaeological investigation;
much more so than simple graphical displays. Furthermore, it is
important to note that the careful observation of the limitations of
each method, like the physical property contrast of the site or the
correct choice of the origin point for the 3D grid, is imperative to
obtain reliable results.
1671
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