As higher resolution datasets have become more available and more accessible within commercial agriculture, there has been an increasing expectation that more data will bring more answers to questions surrounding soil, crop and yield variability. When this does not happen, trust and confidence in data can be lost, affecting the uptake and use of precision agriculture.

This research presents a novel approach for understanding complex soil variability at a variety of different scales. It seeks to understand the impact that archaeological sites may have on soils and how those impacts might be relevant in precision agriculture systems?

From one case study site in the UK, preliminary results indicate that there are a number of ways that archaeological sites impact agricultural soils. Geophysical variations show changes in soil depth relating to archaeological features, but also outline where past activity may be expected. Some past activities such as habitation increase the likelihood of geochemical variation in key agricultural elements like phosphorus. NDVI satellite imagery have some correlations with parts of an archaeological site relating to previous human occupation, yet is irregular over time.

This highlights the need to understand both the archaeological site as well as the agricultural context, to be able to add understanding to areas of complex variation, which may not appear regularly over a number of years, but clearly impact certain crops, in certain conditions.