The San Lorenzo Geospatial Project: Mapping the Olmec City and Landscape

Summary

For the past decade, we have applied a series of nested geospatial techniques to better understand the development and evolution of the Olmec city of San Lorenzo and the surrounding regional landscape. Built on a foundation of more than two decades of traditional archaeological excavation, settlement survey and artifact analysis, the geospatial project expands the coverage and confirms much of what is known about San Lorenzo’s evolution and settlement ecology. The project also provides opportunities to re-examine the spatial and temporal patterns of architecture and artifacts, as it relates to San Lorenzo’s cultural history. In this paper we first review the results of the digital sub-surface survey, a project wherein the entire site was referenced, gridded and cored for soil. We then describe how remote sensing, including LiDAR and low aerial high resolution imagery have been applied to broaden interpretations of San Lorenzo and its regional landscape. While these new technologies provide an enhanced picture of San Lorenzo’s past, we offer that these data are far more useful and informative when coupled to the decades of traditional archaeological research.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage