Testing the Potential of UAV-based Lidar survey in the Lion Mountain Area of West Central New Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The use of lidar as a survey tool has revealed vast areas of past human activity in parts of the world with dense vegetative cover. However, its applications have not been explored to the same degree in areas with less vegetation and good surface visibility, such as that of the American Southwest. Ongoing research for the Lion Mountain Archaeology Project has sought, in part, to understand Ancestral Pueblo activity within a roughly 12 square mile area of the Gallinas Mountains in west-central New Mexico. We report on initial tests to use drone-based lidar to survey areas previously subjected to intensive pedestrian survey to determine the limits of site detection using this remote sensing method. Ancestral Pueblo habitation and ceremonial sites in the region frequently exhibit visible surface features such as rock alignments, rubble mounds, depressions, and/or standing architecture. If it is possible to reliably identify larger habitation and ceremonial sites using remote sensing methods, future survey in the study area and surrounding regions may be expedited. If proven a viable method, future tests could involve lidar survey of previously unsurveyed areas followed by ground-truthing via pedestrian survey.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35870.0