Applications of Geospatial Technologies in Known Archaeological Landscapes: Re-examining the Archaeological Settlement Pattern of Falefa Valley

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Geospatial Studies in the Archaeology of Oceania" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The development and present nature of landscape archaeology in the Pacific owes much to the pioneering work of Janet Davidson and Roger Green in Falefa Valley, Upolu, Sāmoa. This research, completed in the absence of modern geospatial technology, not only demonstrated the potential of landscape-scale investigations in Polynesia but also laid the foundation for Sāmoan archaeology more generally by constructing an initial chronology and documenting the variation of the archaeological record in the region. This paper builds on the work of Davidson and Green by presenting results of renewed research in Falefa Valley that has taken advantage of modern geospatial technology. Access to a commercial lidar dataset has allowed a re-imagination of the Falefa landscape, identifying large-scale spatial patterns of land use and informing the use of pedestrian survey techniques. We describe and illustrate patterns of food production not previously documented and discuss the implications that these patterns might have on our understanding of Sāmoan settlement and subsistence.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Geospatial Studies in the Archaeology of Oceania

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25007