Predicting the Past: GIS Weighted Modeling on the Carrizo Plain National Monument

Summary

The Carrizo Plain National Monument contains some of the most significant heritage resources in North America. Appropriate management is critical to the preservation of these sensitive resources. The results of GIS modeling can be directly applied toward a wide variety of historic preservation approaches. This presentation will describe the development of a site location predictive model for the CPNM and its direct application to resource management. The model identifies areas where culturally sensitive resources are likely to be based on determined criteria. Weighted overlay analysis was used to condense the output into 5 categories: most suitable, somewhat, suitable, moderately suitable, and least suitable. The inputs of the model were numerous dataset, which included: elevation, slope, aspect, distance to surface water, vegetation, and soil data based on drainage and texture. Development of the Carrizo Plain National Monument predictive model was basically a two-step process. The first step was to create the necessary layers for the area using a GIS. The second step was to create a predictive model of site location based on data contained in the layers. Protecting and locating these historical remains is highly important and of concern to Archaeologists.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage