Regional and Intensive Site Survey: Case Studies from Mesoamerica

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Regional and Intensive Site Survey: Case Studies from Mesoamerica," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Systematic survey, whether extensive, intensive, and at varying scales, is one of the basic archaeological fieldwork strategies, and it remains among the most productive research tools in the discipline, allowing researchers to detect patterns related to economic and political organization, make generalizations, or test hypotheses about the human behavior reflected in the material record, as well as make comparisons across Mesoamerica and beyond. Frequently, regional surveys provide the first information regarding the location, organization, and potential significance of archaeological resources in previously unexplored contexts, as well as crucial evidence for past human activities over a large area. Alternately, intensive site survey has the potential to reveal new data at even the most rigorously excavated sites. This session reinforces the role and value of surveys in archaeological research by presenting new data and interpretations derived from a series of recent surveys. Spanning the geographic extent of Mesoamerica, these papers explore the above issues and others, including questions ranging from the ways in which remote sensing techniques or new lines of evidence— such as the use of LiDAR or genomic data— can augment and complement traditional pedestrian survey, to how archaeological survey data may be used politically to craft heritage conservation policy.