Abstract
This case study presents the results of an extensive remote sensing survey testing the capabilities of multispectral and Synthetic Aperture Radar data to detect ancient Maya settlements in the seasonally inundated near-coastal region of northwest Yucatan. The results are compared to similar recent studies published by researchers working in the southern Maya lowlands. It is concluded that seasonal and regional variation across the Maya area precludes universal application of a singular remote sensing technique using these and similar platforms. Instead, specific climatic, seasonal, and physiographic context must be considered in the selection of a remote sensing data set. For multispectral data, spectral contrast, spectral resolution, and temporal resolution appear to be more critical for site detection than spatial resolution. For the AirSAR polarimetric data, it is concluded that the L-band (rather than the highly anticipated P-band) resulted in a better correlation between positive returns and monumental architecture within the forest canopy. Yet, the C-band AirSAR DEM appears to have the broadest application in Maya archaeological survey, especially when combined with other remote sensing data sets.
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Hixson, D.R. (2013). The Use of Multispectral Imagery and Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar for the Detection of Archaeological Sites and Features in the Western Maya Wetlands of Chunchucmil, Yucatan, Mexico. In: Mapping Archaeological Landscapes from Space. SpringerBriefs in Archaeology(), vol 5. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6074-9_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6074-9_11
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