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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, April 18, 2016 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

drawing of Mesoamerican village

Christopher Fisher

"The Application of LiDAR Scanning for the Documentation of Ancient Cities and Regions"

ABSTRACT -- The application of airborne LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging, or "Light RADAR") for the detection and documentation of archaeological sites in arid and semi-arid regions of the Americas has initiated a 'paradigm shift' for Mesoamerican archaeology. Here I discuss results from two archaeological projects in disparate areas of Mesoamerica that have utilized LiDAR to both examine intra-site and extra-site patterning. The first, centered at the site of Angamuco in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, used LiDAR as a tool to examine the spatial patterning of individual units of architecture. The second used LiDAR to document the complete settlement pattern of an unexplored valley within the Mosquitia tropical wilderness of Honduras. Both of these studies confirm that value and promise of LiDAR technology.

SPEAKER -- Christopher Fisher is a professor of anthropology at Colorado State University. He received his doctorate and MA degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and his undergraduate degree from Michigan State University. His work appears in edited volumes, including a co-edited book on intensification, Seeking a Richer Harvest: An Introduction to the Archaeology of Subsistence Intensification, Innovation, and Change published by Plenum, The Archaeology of Environmental Change: Socionatural Legacies of Degradation and Resilience, and journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Anthropologist. He has conducted fieldwork in several areas of the United States, Mexico, Portugal, and Albania. His work is supported by the National Science Foundation, National Geographic, the Heinz Foundation, and other agencies. In 2007 Fisher received the Gordon R. Willey Award from the American Anthropological Association.


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov