A Comparison of Vector Based and Raster Based Analyses of Historic Records for the Identification of Archaeological Sites
Date
2015-08-19
Authors
Keen, Jolene R
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Abstract
This thesis compares a vector based analysis and a raster based analysis of observations and photographs from an historic aerial survey to identify Mayan archaeological sites. The first relies on the distance measurements taken during the original survey to select likely points from a comprehensive database of known Mayan sites while the second relies on the structural features of the landscape to identify likely sites. The two analyses indicate that neither method offers definitive results when used exclusively. The distance measurements cannot be relied upon as absolute due to errors in calculations and the accuracy of the site database. Instead, the distances offer a starting point for a landscape based search. The result is a multi-media model that uses a wide variety of overlapping data in order to utilize the unique information available in historic records for archaeological prospection.
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Keywords
Aerial photography, GIS, Archaeology, Maya, Charles Lindbergh, Google Earth