Analysis and Implications of Post-Depositional Bias in the Basin of Mexico (BOM) Surveys: A Preliminary Case Study of the Texcoco Survey Region

Summary

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

The Basin of Mexico (BOM) regional surveys have been a cornerstone of archaeological inferences about Prehispanic demography, political and economic organization over the long-term. However, recent geoarchaeological fieldwork in the BOM has indicated patterned geomorphological biases in the regional surveys, notably the repeated phases of Holocene alluvial deposition obscuring remnants of Prehispanic landscapes from surface survey. This preliminary study uses geophysical techniques to analyze and estimate post-depositional biases in the Texcoco survey region data. Survey data, 5m lidar DEMs, and other INEGI geospatial data clearly detect the geomorphic features documented in fieldwork, enabling us to map the signatures of past geomorphic processes. Using these process-based geomorphic signatures, machine learning, and non-linear regression, we model the probability and degree of post-depositional bias. This highlights areas where surface sites would be obscured by deposition and modern land use (both at the time of the survey and today). Early 16th century ethnohistoric data then facilitate the predictive modeling of Aztec settlement corrected for the estimated error in survey site recovery. These techniques highlight the potential magnitude and theoretical implications of systematic biases in the BOM survey data, as well as identify fruitful areas for excavation and subsurface remote sensing.

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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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33579