The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology

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magnetic susceptibility

magnetic susceptibility [Te].
A technique that measures the degree to which a body of soil or sediment becomes magnetized when exposed to a magnetic field of known strength. All soils have some potentially magnetizable components, the nature of the ferrous mineralization and particle size being a major influencing factor. This allows apparently similar sediments to be distinguished from one another according to the degree of susceptibility. Especially useful for archaeology is the fact that the introduction of humic, organic, and burnt material, such as might be associated with settlements or areas of human occupation, tend to increase the susceptibility of soils. In archaeological prospection, systematically sampling an area of landscape may allow areas of high and low magnetic susceptibility to be recognized and thus settlement areas and activity sites to be identified. Within an individual site the technique can be used to characterize deposits and...

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