Ranking Estimation of Maya Archaeological Sites using Topographic Parameters

Summary

The position of an archaeological site in a transport network is a critical parameter for its prosperity. Large collections of alien relics were excavated on various sites of the Copán region, indicating the importance of inter-site relations and trading. The importance of a particular site accordingly influenced the political, social and religious life of its surrounding sites. In order to evaluate the theoretical rate of prosperity in comparison with other sites in a region, a reconstruction of the transport routes is required. In this study, a series of candidate routes between sites are estimated using topographic parameters. The resulting routes are ranked based on their potential use, implicitly qualifying the nodes within the network and thus the prosperity of archaeological sites. It is assumed that the routes are the result of an iterative process where the final routes represent the most optimal path between sites, and that most transport took place by canoe or by hiking. The track estimation is therefore based on the anisotropic analysis of a digital elevation model and compared with a slope-based least cost algorithm.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• The Copan Kingdom and its Political Interactions along the Southeastern Maya Frontier

Keywords

Spatial Coverage