Remote Sensing/Geophysics (Other Keyword)
251-275 (289 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There has been a long history of settlement and household archaeology in the Belize River valley that has added significantly to our understanding of everyday people in the Maya lowlands. Recent studies that include LiDAR provide a broader landscape perspective. LiDAR can also be useful in determining labor investment in domestic architecture through...
Toward an Automated Model for Archaeological Site Detection in Eastern Botswana, a Clustering Method (2018)
This paper is an effort to create a predictive model for archaeological sites in an area of Eastern Botswana. With a rather arid climate, much of Botswana’s ground surface (and archaeology) is easily visible to airborne and spaceborne sensors. Without sufficient training data for supervised classification, an iterative spectral clustering method was used to group spectrally similar pixels from multispectral imagery into a large number of spectrally distinct but unknown classes. By visually...
Toward the Remote Identification of Stone Tools in Submerged, Buried Contexts Using Acoustics (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the inception of geophysical survey, archaeologists have longed for the ability to detect the presence or absence of artifacts in buried contexts remotely. This ability is particularly desirable underwater, where accuracy in site location and efficiency in excavation are paramount given the expense and logistical burden associated with performing...
Tracing Early Farming Communities in Southern Mozambique by Geophysical Prospection: Current State of Activities, Part 1 (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in Mozambique: Current Issues and Topics in Archaeology and Heritage Management" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In southern Africa, the appearance of pottery was first recognized in the context of Early Farming Communities (EFC) about 2000 BP. Increasingly, pottery can be linked to hunter-gatherers; therefore, southern Africa stands out as a place to investigate the contact between these two communities....
Tracing Early Farming Communities in Southern Mozambique by Geophysical Prospection: Current State of Activities, Part 2 (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in Mozambique: Current Issues and Topics in Archaeology and Heritage Management" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In southern Africa, the appearance of pottery was first recognized in the context of Early Farming Communities (EFC) about 2000 BP. Increasingly, pottery can be linked to hunter-gatherers, therefore southern Africa stands out as a place to investigate the contact between these two communities. In...
The Trackway Site: Human Footprints at the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition in the Great Salt Lake Desert (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Application of Geophysical Techniques to Military Archaeology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2022, human footprints were discovered on the Old River Bed delta, a large terminal Pleistocene to early Holocene distributary wetland in western Utah’s Great Salt Lake Desert. The site also sits within the boundaries of the U.S. Air Force’s Utah Test and Training Range. The prints’ preservation and context showed the...
Traditional Subsistence Economies on Southwest Madagascar have Long-term Impacts on Ecological Productivity (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The environmental impacts of human societies are generally assumed to correlate with factors such as population size, whether they are industrialized, and the intensity of their landscape modifications (e.g., agriculture, urban development, etc.). As a result, small-scale communities with subsistence economies are often not the focus of long-term studies...
Twenty-First-Century Archeological Geophysics in the National Park Service (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Midwest Archeological Center (National Park Service) has long been at the forefront of geophysical surveys for archeological research and heritage management in the United States. Since the Center’s pioneering efforts to showcase the practicality of geophysical methods nearly 50 years ago, our use of ground-based surveys has become indispensable for...
Uncovering the Foundations (Literally) of Higher Education in Michigan: The Discovery of Michigan State University’s First Campus Observatory (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In May 2023, Michigan State University (MSU) construction workers installing hammock poles hit what they believed was a foundation or rock. They immediately contacted MSU's Campus Archaeology Program (CAP), directed by Dr. Stacey Camp. Ben Akey, the Campus Archaeologist at the time, examined historic maps and aerials, which revealed that the first...
Unseen Aztalan: Preliminary Results of a Geomagnetic Survey of the Aztalan Enclosure (2018)
Lynne Goldstein’s compilation of a GIS-based map of the Aztalan site, portraying all investigations through 1996, visually integrated almost two centuries of archaeological work at the site in southern Wisconsin. Lynne’s map made two things startlingly clear. First, decades of excavations were not all referenced to a common datum and few had left visible surface indications, making it difficult to relocate earlier excavations and avoid re-excavating disturbed contexts. Second, just 10% of the...
Urbanization in Ancient Tonga: The Tongatapu Low-Density Urban System (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Theorizing Prehistoric Large Low-Density Settlements beyond Urbanism and Other Conventional Classificatory Conventions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The concept of low-density urbanization has been an important development in recognizing the diversity of past human settlements. However, the key challenge to studying low density urbanization with archaeological data, particularly in tropical zones, has been the...
The Use and Benefit of Integrated Geophysical Survey in the Study of an Irish Early Medieval Site Rath Maol (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The State of the Art in Medieval European Archaeology: New Discoveries, Future Directions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper addresses the value of an integrated geophysical survey approach, which includes the application of GPR, DGPS, and magnetic gradiometry, to identify archaeological areas of occupation non-invasively. This approach was applied to RathMaol, as part of a larger ongoing research project,...
The Use of Geophysics to Image Structures at Broyhill Mound (31CW8) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geophysical surveys were conducted at the Broyhill Mound, a protohistoric late Burke village in the foothills of the Southern Appalachians ~30 km northeast from Fort San Juan/Berry (1566-1568), to guide investigations. The site was first discovered by John Rogan for Cyrus Thomas in 1883, and then rediscovered by Richard Polhemus in 1964 and Appalachian State...
Use of Human Remains Detection Dogs to Find Unmarked Precontact Human Burials in the Ohio Valley (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Canine Resources for the Archaeologist" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Remote sensing techniques, including magnetic survey and ground penetrating radar, are commonly used in archaeology as part of cultural resource management projects. In this presentation, we share our experience using a complimentary and nascent remote sensing technique to locate human remains on archaeological sites, human remains detection (HRD)...
The Use of Primary Sources in Plantation Archaeology: the Case Study of Hacienda La Esperanza. (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Primary Sources and the Design of Research Projects" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research at Hacienda La Esperanza, a nineteenth century sugar plantation in the municipality of Manatí, Puerto Rico, was conducted to study the material culture of its enslaved population and document their unwritten experiences. The use of primary sources proved indispensable during the early research design stages of the project....
Using Geophysical Survey to Relocate Missing World War II-Era American Graves and a Large Postwar Unmarked Cemetery near Stalag Luft VI, a German POW Camp in Macikai, Lithuania (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Fulfilling a Nation’s Promise: The Search, Recovery, and Accounting Efforts of DPAA and Its Partners" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1944, on separate occasions, three US military airman died while interned at the Stalag Luft VI German prisoner-of-war camp in what is now the Village of Macikai, Lithuania. All three were interred in a small burial area, along with at least one other (a Canadian airman), located...
Using Geophysics for Cemetery Delineation on DOD Installations: Practical Advice, Pitfalls, and Project Examples (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Application of Geophysical Techniques to Military Archaeology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cemeteries and burial grounds are a common feature of the historic landscape, and mapping cemeteries is a consistent and pressing land management need for DOD cultural resource managers. When a cemetery is involved, stakeholders may be diverse and the results can be emotionally charged. Land managers and the public may...
Using LiDAR and Environmental Suitability Models to Predict Probable Locations of Ancient Settlements in Manabí, Ecuador (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years, LIDAR has gained popularity among archaeological researchers for its capability to reveal ancient settlement features hidden beneath dense vegetation coverage in heavily forested areas. More often, these studies have revealed undocumented monumental architecture and in some cases modified landscapes such as agricultural terraces, canals, and...
Using LiDAR to Map an Ancient Purépecha Water Management System in ArcGIS (2018)
Recent applications of LiDAR technology at the Late Postclassic city of Angamuco, located in the heartland of the ancient Purépecha Empire in modern day Michoacan, Mexico are allowing for the identification and analysis of urban features in innovative ways. A complex system of constructed water management features consisting of reservoirs, sunken plazas, and connective canals were a vital form of infrastructure that were required for the movement of water across the dynamic landscape upon which...
Using Multispectral Drone Imagery for Identification of Prehispanic Agricultural Features (2018)
In recent years, the use of multispectral satellite imagery has become an increasingly viable option for archaeological site detection and classification. Nevertheless, the high costs and relatively low resolution of multispectral data present challenges for local-scale archaeological feature detection. In this presentation, we will examine the advantages and limitations of using UAV aerial multispectral imagery as a means of local-scale feature detection. We compare results of remote sensing...
Using Remote Sensing to Re-evaluate Prehistoric Land Use in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Remote sensing has been used extensively the past several years to study prehistoric land use in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Previous land use models for Chaco predict economic activities such as agriculture and water management near some of the major sites within the canyon, and these models have been critical to understanding how land use contributed to the...
Uso de Dispositivos Open Hardware en Proyectos Arqueológicos en México (2019)
This is an abstract from the "La Práctica Arqueológica en México en Tiempos de Crisis: Escenarios, Problemáticas Claves, Actores, Acciones y Propuestas" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Desde sus orígenes de relativamente baja tecnología, la arqueología ha evolucionado en una disciplina altamente tecnologizada, que emplea instrumentos para localizar, caracterizar y exhibir al sitios y yacimientos. Los arqueólogos con acceso a tecnología novedosa...
The Utility of Metal Detector Surveys in CRM (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Science Outside the Ivory Tower: Perspectives from CRM" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Metal detectors are rarely employed in CRM research yet their utility in locating historic sites of low visibility and artifact density have been effectively demonstrated in Battlefield Archaeology studies. This paper will argue for the importance and utility of metal detector surveys in CRM through several case...
Utilization and Field Testing of LiDAR in the Maya Hinterlands (2018)
Airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is an active remote-sensing technique which records the surface of the earth using laser scanning. The recent acquisition of LiDAR data for a portion of the Three Rivers regions in northwestern Belize offered the opportunity for a new way to analyze settlement and landscape utilization by the ancient Maya. This paper will focus on the systematic analysis of the dataset, ground verification, and post-processing methodologies. ArcGIS was used for the...
Vegetative Agency and Social Memory in Houselots of Ancient Cobá (2018)
It is difficult to pin down the objective definition of a weed; rather, the idea of a weed is constructed through a set of characteristics that are, for the most part, dependent on context and relative interactions. Doody et al (2014) use Judith Butler’s (1990) concept of performativity to describe this dynamic, ongoing construction as a product of the agency of both people and plants. Here we interpret studies on ancient Maya agricultural techniques through the lens of plant agency and...