Reflections on digital data acquisition and analysis at Chavín de Huántar, Peru

Summary

The monumental center of Chavín de Huántar in the Peruvian Central Andes has been the subject of mapping efforts for more than a century, and of digital mapping efforts since the mid-1990s. Spatial technology has been fundamental to significant revision of the site’s construction sequence, definition and extent, and ultimately interpretation. This results from the site’s complex, three-dimensional, and often-obscured architecture, mapping which has only become practical – and perhaps even possible – with digital tools. The array of technologies brought to bear over the last 15+ years includes total station, high-precision GPS, satellite imagery, laser scanning, photogrammetry, near-surface geophysics, and kite aerial photography; data have been managed with both CAD and GIS. That rare duality resulted from the need to simultaneously manage complex, three-dimensional data and extensive, attribute-rich data, as well as distinct sets of research questions. This paper reflects on the respective contributions of these two strategies to the analysis of complex architecture, teasing apart the relative contributions of different strategies of digital data acquisition and considering what analyses they have enabled, before contemplating the risks of digital representation becoming an end unto itself.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Ancient Architecture and Spatial Technology: A Global Perspective

Keywords

Spatial Coverage