Methods of LiDAR Mapping in Urban Landscapes: Introducing the Teotihuacan LiDAR Map

Summary

In the 1970s, systematic and expansive survey techniques enabled Million to create the first map of Teotihuacan, establishing the limits and density of the city. In this presentation we introduce a newly developed 2.5 dimensional map based on a LiDAR landscape model overlaid with a high-precision architectural map of the city drawn in AutoCAD covering 174 km2 area that extends the Million map by 131 km2. LiDAR technologies have greatly aided archaeological research in many landscapes with high vegetation cover by revealing ground surface detail at a quality and precision which would be difficult and highly costly to achieve with traditional ground-based survey techniques. We evaluate the perils and unique approaches to LiDAR mapping of the Teotihuacan Valley caused by both the continuous occupation and the highly urbanized landscape distinctly characteristic of the region. While this palimpsest landscape provides additional hurdles to LiDAR interpretation, it facilitates a hybrid LiDAR methodology of ground-truthing and digitizing through a fully online system.

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): 21802