EXA: What's it all about?

Extreme Archaeology team leader Mark Davies is a volcanologist, or someone who studies volcanoes. So what's that got to do with archaeology? And how did a volcanologist end up leading a team of crack climbers and expert archeologists? Mark Davies explains.

Boils on the backside

Volcanoes are more than just boils on the backside of the earth, sleeping giants that awaken to wreak destruction on anyone or anything unlucky enough to get caught up in their eruptions. They also have the ability to preserve. The same forces that can wipe out entire communities, or even civilisations, can also create instantaneous and astonishingly detailed time capsules. They can preserve intact people's homes, belongings, temples, citadels and sometimes entire towns and cities beneath the volcanic ash or mud that engulfed them.

At any given time during man's brief (in geological terms) presence on the earth, there have been about 1500 active volcanoes worldwide, many of which erupt periodically. What's more, human beings have always been drawn to them, making it more likely that they will get caught up in their eruptions.

This is because volcanic soil is rich in nutrients, and the ashy lava piles that volcanoes throw up act like giant sponges, soaking up an endless supply of precious water. The result is that the slopes of these towering beasts contain some of the richest agricultural land on the planet. It's an irresistible inducement for people to settle and cultivate, and more often than not, a deadly interaction ensues.

Volcanoes and archaeology

The world is littered with examples of volcanically produced archaeological remains. My first posting as a wet-behind-the-ears volcanologist was to the island of Santorini, a magnificent volcanic caldera in the Mediterranean. More than 3,500 years ago, Santorini exploded with a ferocious blast that possibly changed the course of one of the greatest and most sophisticated civilisations of that time, the Minoans.

In doing so it captured a unique insight of life at that time by burying the ancient town of Akrotiri in volcanic ash and preserving it for archaeologists to excavate thousands of years later. Two-storey buildings equipped with pots, pans, fresco paintings, sewerage systems and even flushing toilets were all preserved almost undamaged.

Nor is Santorini the only example. In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii and Herculaneum, bequeathing us perfectly preserved examples of first-century Roman settlements. From Cappadocia in Turkey to Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia in Central America, the list goes on. More often than not, when studying volcanoes, I have found myself working side by side with archaeologists, with me being interested in their work and they interested in mine. I find it remarkable that the two disciplines so rarely overlap.

Multitude of skills

But the connection between volcanology and archaeology doesn't stop there. As a volcanologist you have to call on a multitude of skills to get your job done. And it is this experience that has enabled me to act as a bridge between the archaeologists on Extreme Archaeology and the access team of expert climbers, cavers and divers.

Working on volcanoes can be like working in an extreme sports playground. On any given expedition you may find yourself scrambling up rock faces, snow and ice climbing, diving into lakes or caving deep into fissures in the earth's crust, just to get to the workplace. A volcanologist has to be a climber, caver, diver, cook and bottle washer all in one. The Extreme Archaeology access team may be streets ahead in terms of technical and raw ability, but at least I understand where they are coming from (most of the time!) in terms of safety and the complexity of getting the archaeologists onto perilous sites.

Common science and techniques

There is also a strong connection between archaeology and volcanology in terms of some of the science and the techniques that are used in each discipline. For example, geophysics plays a large role in volcanology. I'm actually a volcano geophysicist, and whether you are searching for magma buried in the earth's crust, or for buildings, walls and burials, the principles behind the techniques are identical.

Another connection between the two disciplines is one that the Extreme Archaeology series producer, Tim Taylor, identified as central to his concept of the programmes. This involves why human beings were initially attracted to a particular location. Tim wanted to go beyond the 'Here is a relic, it was used for …' approach to television archaeology, and pose questions such as what drew people to these barren, desolate and often inhospitable places.

Geological explanation

A knowledge of geology can help to provide some of the answers. For example, in Shetland we conducted an excavation on a rocky promontory, exposed to howling gales and battering waves. It seems an improbable place to settle, but the sea stack housed a geological commodity that was invaluable to the people of the time – hence the settlement.

Other examples from the series include the apparently random nature of finds discovered in a cave system in the Forest of Dean (Death in Slaughter Stream). The answer to the puzzle again lay in the geology. In Chepstow, too, in the first programme in the series, the apparent lack of any finds beside a Roman road (extremely unusual archaeologically) was possibly connected to a geological phenomenon. Watch the programmes to find out the geological explanations in each case.