Utilizing Drone Modeling to Facilitate Targeted Pedestrian Survey in Central Western Patagonia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Regional archaeological survey is notably difficult in continental Aysén, Chile. Many researchers mark the difficult terrain and dense vegetation of forest and forest-steppe biomes of this region of Central Western Patagonia as major factors limiting our ability to identify new archaeological sites. Thus far, most sites identified across the region are rockshelters, and this trend in survey results is likely due to our relative inability to identify open-air sites in hard to reach areas. Recently, methods such as remote sensing (i.e., magnetometry) have been utilized successfully to identify buried archaeological sites. However, regional magnetometry survey can be quite expensive. In this project, I utilize a less cost-prohibitive method to identify ideal landforms for subsurface archaeological testing. Using drone modeling of a 10 square kilometer area of forest-steppe ecotone adjacent to the Ibáñez River Valley (IRV), I employ a method of targeted subsurface survey to better identify buried archaeological sites. In this presentation I report the results of this survey and discuss possible outcomes for our understanding of this relatively-understudied area of Patagonia, particularly relating to settlement patterns, environmental marginality, and perceived chronological gaps.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38030.0