Integrating UAV-Based Photogrammetry, Digital Data Collection, and GIS during the Trincheras Tradition Project Excavations

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Trincheras Tradition Project is an ongoing collaborative effort to better understand the prehispanic past of Northwest Mexico. Led by Dr. Randall McGuire and Elisa Villalpando, researchers from Binghamton University and the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) spent two field seasons in 2017 and 2018 excavating three Trincheras Tradition sites in Sonora, Mexico: El Póporo, San Martin, and La Potranca. This project involves the first intensive excavations of Trincheras sites dating before AD 1200. This poster documents how project researchers integrated an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Filemaker, and ArcMap to photograph and map features and artifacts during archaeological excavation. UAV photogrammetry provided aerial imagery and a digital elevation model of each site. In addition, the UAV provided high quality images of features. All feature maps were drawn digitally with tablets in the field and georeferenced into ArcMap. Other data from artifact, soil, and pollen analyses are also designed to be joined with the project GIS. Integrating these technologies allowed for more streamlined data entry and improved visualization of spatial information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33506