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ABSTRACT
Archaeologists study many phenomena that scale beyond even our most geographically expansive field methodologies. The promise of collecting archaeologically relevant data beyond the scale of regional surveys is among the most exciting prospects of the “data revolution.” Yet previous efforts have either struggled to generate high-quality data within expansive regions or to use well-edited interregional datasets to address novel research questions. We discuss the development of two collaborative research projects that seek to address these problems—GeoPACHA (Geospatial Platform for Andean Culture, History and Archaeology) and LOGAR (Linked Open Gazetteer of the Andean Region). The former is an online platform facilitating virtual archaeological survey of satellite and historical aerial imagery; the latter collates primary source information on Andean places. We illustrate the potential of both tools through presentation and analysis of a comprehensive basemap of the planned colonial towns built during a mass resettlement program instituted in the viceroyalty of Peru in the 1570s C.E.
Acknowledgments
Initial development of LOGAR and GeoPACHA were supported by funding through a National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Digital Humanities Startup Grant, a Vanderbilt University Center for Digital Humanities Faculty Fellowship, and a Vanderbilt University Chancellor’s Faculty Fellowship (Wernke, P.I.). Implementation-scale funding for GeoPACHA is supported by a Digital Extension Grant from the American Council of Learned Societies (Wernke and VanValkenburgh, co-P.I.s), and a Spatial Archaeometry Research Collaborations (SPARC) grant from the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST) at the University of Arkansas (Wernke and VanValkenburgh, Co-P.I.s). Imagery purchases were made possible by a grant from the Vanderbilt University Data Science Institute, and an in-kind grant from the DigitalGlobe Foundation (Wernke, P.I.). Computational infrastructural support was provided by the Spatial Analysis Research Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, and the Digital Archaeology Laboratory, Brown University. The ideas developed in this paper benefitted tremendously through the symposia and workshops made possible by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Saito, P.I.). All errors in fact or interpretation are solely those of the authors.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on Contributors
Steven Wernke (Ph.D. 2003, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is the Joe B. Wyatt Distinguished University Professor and Associate Professor of Anthropology, and director of the Spatial Analysis Research Laboratory (SARL) at Vanderbilt University. Currently, he directs two digital archaeology and ethnohistory initiatives focusing on prehispanic and colonial communities in the Andes: LOGAR: Linked Open Gazetteer of the Andean Region (with co-editor Akira Saito, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan), and GeoPACHA: Geospatial Platform for Andean History, Culture, and Archaeology (with co-editor Parker VanValkenburgh, Brown University).
Parker VanValkenburgh (Ph.D. 2012, Harvard University) is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Brown University, head of the Brown Digital Archaeology Laboratory, and an elected fellow of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. Among other research projects, he co-directs the Paisajes Arqueológicos de Chachapoyas project with Carol Rojas Vega and is co-editor, with Steven Wernke, of GeoPACHA: Geospatial Platform for Andean History, Culture, and Archaeology.
Akira Saito (M.A. 1991, University of Tokyo) is Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the National Museum of Ethnology and the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), Japan. He is coeditor of Reducciones: la concentración forzada de las poblaciones indígenas en el Virreinato del Perú (PUCP, 2017). With funding from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, he currently directs the interdisciplinary research project Colonial Modernity in the Andes: A Comparative Study of Viceroy Toledo’s General Resettlement.