Analytical Models for At-Risk Heritage Conservation and 3D GIS

Summary

In the period 2011-2017, scholars from the University of California Merced and Cardiff University recorded the fragile earthen architecture of Çatalhöyük, Turkey employing cutting-edge conservation technologies to monitor the site and gather new data. Our goal was to model and analyze the site decay and plan conservation interventions. Tools and methods for this initiative include blending site monitoring data and digital documentation data from environmental data loggers, terrestrial laser scanning, micro unmanned aerial vehicles, ground photography, structure from motion, and thermal infrared imaging. Our workflow produced a comprehensive set of information that quantitatively describes the rate of decay of Çatalhöyük’s buildings overtime and underpins potential causes. This paper discusses our recent effort to integrate our extensive corpus of digital information into a GIS for analyzing the state of preservation of the site. In particular, this paper proposes new methods in predictive modeling for conservation enabled by spatial analysis in 3D GIS. Our predictive models offer an opportunity of building a comprehensive view of the site in its current state and serve as the basis of a new best practice methodology that can be employed in the conservation of other heritage sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20193