Lidar at El Pilar: Understanding vegetation above and discovering the ground features below in the Maya forest

Abstract

Lidar data from El Pilar shows great potential for understanding the ancient and contemporary Maya forest landscape. Exploring these rich three-dimensional data with ground visualization strategies using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), our field validation strategy integrates the twenty-first-century tools Lidar, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and GIS with time-tested methods of field observation and assessment of surface features and vegetation. While there is no doubt Lidar is a stimulating addition to the geographical and archaeological tool kit, we recognize it is essential to understand the sources of features our visualizations reveal. Our survey protocol evaluates human impacts on the forest environment by identifying and mapping ancient cultural features, recording basic characteristics of vegetation, and deriving information to extrapolate to the expanding database of Lidar coverage in the Maya Lowlands. Based on emerging results supporting the viability of the milpa-forest garden land-use cycle at the regional and local scales, we hypothesize the Maya created land-use strategies that can be modeled and tested at the site scale at El Pilar.