Big Data, Big Challenges: The Preliminary Results of the Moche Valley Ancient Settlement Survey (MVASS) on the North Coast of Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

We present the preliminary results of the Moche Valley Ancient Settlement Survey. MVASS involves systematic recording of all known prehistoric sites in the Moche Valley (2,708 km2) and creation of an open-access GIS environmental and archaeological database. The project involves archival research, drone mapping of key sites, and additional pedestrian survey. To date, we have created a GIS database with information on more than 1,200 sites. The data set includes sites recorded during the Harvard Chan Chan-Moche Valley Project as well as subsequent surveys of the middle and upper Moche Valley. In addition, we completed three seasons of drone-mapping and extended pedestrian survey into the highlands. Our goal is to understand the social history of the Moche Valley across the long span of the prehistoric era.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 26104