Down By the River Side: A LiDAR-Based Settlement Survey in the Belize River Valley

Summary

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

This paper focuses on the use of lidar technology, in combination with traditional pedestrian ground survey methods, to compare ancient settlement patterns and activity areas in contrasting environmental zones, alluvial floodplains and karstic hills, in the upper Belize River Valley. The paper also describes the capabilities and accuracy of LiDAR technology for use in settlement survey in tropical environments. Landscape archaeology is used as the primary theoretical approach in this study, allowing for an examination of human-environment interactions. Lithic and ceramic analysis from assemblages that were surface collected during the survey are also incorporated in our chronologic and activity centric conclusions for the surveyed settlements in the area of study. LiDAR accuracy rates are examined to evaluate the technologies potential for future research in the area. The collected geospatial data obtained throughout this research contributes to a growing body of GIS-sourced data in the Belize Valley Region and has the potential to inform future research and heritage management in similar geographic areas.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25451