Mixed Media

A lecture on “Utilizing Modern Technology to Understand the Past: GIS and Remote Sensing at an Ancient Maya Community”

We can put people on the moon, but we can’t cure the common cold. That lament is nearly a half-century old (since 1969’s Apollo 11 mission) and is still valid. But once in a while, a leap of Big Science reaches down to the common folks. Archaeologists use GIS-based remote sensing techniques to discern ancient landscapes from space, and many of us use similar technologies to play Pokémon Go or navigate cities with the Google Maps smartphone app. Amy Thompson, a Ph.D. candidate in the University of New Mexico’s department of anthropology, will go into some detail about this realm at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 28.

Thompson will talk about two Classic Period (AD 250-800) Mayan centers, Uxbenká and Ix Kuku’il, in the jungle of Belize. Satellite imagery is less effective there, but she works with Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) imagery that can virtually penetrate the forest canopy. “With LIDAR, a plane flies over and sends out light signals that touch everything, from the canopy to the ground, and the signals bounce back and that allows you to create a 3D model of the landscape,” she said. “Then you can use software to strip away the canopy and see the bare earth.

“So part of it,” she continued, “is using remote sensing techniques like LIDAR and part is ground-truthing, where I go into the jungle and identify places where archaeological sites actually are. Instead of saying we think something is here, we have to go and find the archaeological site and not just something that looks like a site but may be only rocks. Then I bring that data back to New Mexico and put it into a computer. I use a program called ArchGIS to do these geospatial analyses.” She also uses “least-cost path” analyses to model the way people may have moved across the land at these ancient sites.

The Thompson talk, “Utilizing Modern Technology to Understand the Past: GIS and Remote Sensing at an Ancient Maya Community,” is part of the museum’s Archaeology 101 Lecture Series. Admission is free with museum admission; call 505-471-1271 for more information.