Navigating Public LiDAR in Samoa

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.

In 2014, The World Bank helped the government of Samoa to launch a climate resilience program. Included in this initiative was the financing of a light detecting and ranging (LiDAR) survey throughout the entirety of the country. Although originally meant solely for national climate information services and hazard mapping, the LiDAR dataset has since been shared between The Samoan Ministry for Natural Resources and the Environment and The Center for Samoan Studies (CSS) at The National University of Samoa. This information sharing was prompted once the data set’s use as an instrumental tool for archaeological survey was identified. CSS intends to further this information sharing in order to elicit assistance in expanding upon their archaeological survey of recent years. Soon, this LiDAR dataset will be available to the public with the hope that Samoans will take a more active role in rediscovering their own cultural heritage. This paper overviews the archaeological research in Samoa in the years since 2014 and provides direction for a potential upwelling of public archaeology in the islands. Additionally, this paper discusses how the people of Samoa may interpret, add to, or reject the information drawn from the newly public information.

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): 23839