Intern: Aric Monts-Homkey
Mentor: Anabel Ford
Faculty: Mike Goodchild
GIS application in archeaology: UCSB Maya Forest GIS
Introduction
A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a tool that is
becoming more and more widely accepted in many fields, both in academia and the
business world. One reason for this is the GIS's ability to handle spatial data
and to show relationships between objects that would have otherwise gone
unnoticed. The field of MesoAmerican archaeology is one example where a GIS
could improve our understanding of the past. For over one hundred years,
archaeologists have been working in MesoAmerica, excavating ruins, and studying
artifacts. A GIS has played limited roles in this area, mainly in the form of
predictive models to aid in conservation and to efficiently plan future work. In
this paper, we will go one step further, first creating a predictive model for
settlement in a small part of MesoAmerica, and second, discussing the model in
terms of artifact assemblages to form an understanding of the diversity of Maya
settlement and its key to the environment.
The Central Maya Lowlands was once the heart of the Maya
Civilization. Encompassing parts of western Belize and the Peten of Guatemala,
its covers diverse terrain, various land resources, and rich jungle. Surviving
for over 3000 years on such a unique environment, the Maya were agrarian,
growing such crops as maize, beans, and squash. Over time they developed into a
society with a complex hierarchical ruling party while practicing human
sacrifice to appease their gods. In addition, the Maya were great astronomers,
creating one of the most accurate calendars today. Overall, the Maya's greatness
has much to do with their relation to their environment.
To better understand
the Maya, archaeological data collected by the Belize River Archaeological
Settlement Survey (BRASS), directed by Dr. Anabel Ford, a Research
Anthropologist at the University of California Santa Barbara campus, will be
used.
BRASS began work in 1983, a time when residential units were the focus of many surveys throughout the Maya area. By focusing on three transect surveys (one 10km and two 5 km) running from the river valley to the top of the ridge (see fig 1) the project best sampled the area, which has the most variation of soil types, slopes, and land resources. After the crew mapped all residential units found on the landscape, 348 sites were identified and drawn at a scale of 1:4000. The next phase of the survey began with test excavation and later full-scale excavation at 51 of the sites. The fieldwork was completed in 1993 with artifact analysis representing 2000 years of occupation (see Ford and Fedick 1992). With this complete data set, we can best understand life 1000 years ago.