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Louisiana Archaeological Society to host talk by Francisco Estrada-Belli on the use of LiDAR in Maya archaeology

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Louisiana Archaeological Society to host talk by Francisco Estrada-Belli on the use of LiDAR in Maya archaeology

Uptown Campus
Dinwiddie Hall
201

Featuring Francisco Estrada-Belli

Archaeological image rendered using LiDAR

The Louisiana Archaeological Society/Delta Chapter guest speaker series will be hosting Francisco Estrada-Belli, Research Assistant Professor in the Tulane University Department of Anthropology and the Middle American Research Institute for a talk titled The Scaling Factor: How Lidar Technology is Changing our views on Maya Agriculture and Settlement.

A new quantitative analysis of LiDAR data on agricultural features and settlement carried out since 2016 by a consortium of scholars working in Guatemala has generated a series of baseline facts on how much land was available for cultivation and how much land was developed by diverting water, terracing and other geoengineering methods. These data are coupled to more accurate population estimates on a scale that had never been attained before. The results of the study, co-led by Marcello Canuto, Thomas Garrison, and myself are now being published in Science. Francisco Estrada-Belli will present an overview of the results with particular attention to his area of study, the Holmul region, where we made many unexpected finds.

Parking can be found along St. Charles Avenue, Walnut Street, Calhoun Street, and Loyola Avenue.

For additional questions, please visit the Louisiana Archaeological Society's Delta Chapter event page.

Anthropology Department