Falconing the Paleolithic: High-Resolution Aerial Mapping of Northern Mongolian Upper Paleolithic Sites and Landscapes

Summary

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

This paper will discuss the use of high-resolution aerial drone mapping to better understand the cultural landscape, complex geomorphology, and site formation processes in the northern Mongolia’s mountainous forest-steppe environment. In recent years, pedestrian surveys of the Tolbor River (Ikh Tulberiin Gol) and neighboring tributaries (Naryn Tulberiin, Kharganyn, Altatyn) of the greater Selenge River Basin have yielded 95 Upper Paleolithic open-air sites. Excavations at six sites documented 45,000 years of human occupation in the region. Beginning in 2011, efforts to document and characterize the greater Paleolithic landscape used Global Positioning Systems (GPS) mapping of new and previously documented sites, and developed a geographic information systems (GIS) database with base layers from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 30-m and 90-m resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). Recent high-resolution aerial maps heighten our understanding of the complex landscape in this region.

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): 37146.0