Detail of a circular mound village called Dona Maria with ‘twin’ village. Image credit: Iriarte
et al., doi: 10.5334/jcaa.45.
“Lidar provides a new opportunity to locate and document earthen sites in forested parts of Amazonia characterized by dense vegetation,” said Professor Jose Iriarte, an archaeologist and archaeobotanist at the University of Exeter.
“It can also document the smallest surficial earthen features in the recently opened pasture areas.”
Professor Iriarte and his colleagues used a lidar sensor integrated into an MD 500 helicopter to document architectural features below the forest canopy, revealing a more complex and spatially organised landscape than previously thought.