The GIS in Latin America Webinar Series: Use of LiDAR in Colombia

The Use of LiDAR to Understand Ancient Anthropogenic Land Use and Occupation in the Upper Buritaca River Basin, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Colombia)

Santiago Giraldo Peláez and Daniel Rodríguez Osorio
October 19, 2020

Archaeology is increasingly employing airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) in tropical environments where dense vegetation largely hinders the possibility of understanding the extent of ancient landscape modification. Furthermore, the discipline is experiencing a transition from visualization to more sophisticated analytical endeavors that serve to overturn traditional misconceptions of tropical ecologies and the human groups that have inhabited them in the long-term. In this talk, we present an unprecedented view of the pre-Hispanic land use and occupation of the Upper Buritaca River Basin (northern side of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia), enabled by the intermingling of the foregoing technology and the knowledge of this area collected by archaeologists during the past 40 years. We also examine preliminarily how the topography and the masonry architecture of the sectors comprising Teyuna-Ciudad Perdida archaeological site affect their visibility and inter-visibility.