More than pretty pictures: A decade of aerial imagery and photogrammetry in northern Ecuador

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Towards a Standardization of Photogrammetric Methods in Archaeology: A Conversation about 'Best Practices' in An Emerging Methodology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Since 2007 our team has been conducting low level aerial reconnaissance in the northern highlands of Ecuador, a challenging environment with low air pressure, frequent high winds, misting rain, and rapidly alternating intense sun and enveloping low lying clouds. We struggled with our kites that initial year but managed to build the first high-resolution aerial map of an Ecuadorian Inka fortress. During subsequent years, the switch to drones and improved photo-analytical capacity opened a new world of visualization to us and our colleagues, though never without challenges from the difficult environment. Beyond the beautiful images of the Inka fortresses, mound sites, and haciendas that we were mapping, however, was the power of photogrammetry and 3D modeling in building not only precise images but offering a better overall structural understanding as well. Complex slope models and volumetric cut and fill calculations were among the analytical techniques we could bring to the first complete maps of the large earthen mound centers at Cochasquí and Zuleta, for example. Ultimately, the ability to analyze landscapes in real time became our standard, and in conjunction with powerful subsurface tools such as radar and magnetometry, such visualizations have become an essential tool for our investigations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Towards a Standardization of Photogrammetric Methods in Archaeology: A Conversation about 'Best Practices' in An Emerging Methodology

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24234