Lasers Without Lost Cities: Using Drone Lidar to Capture Architectural Complexity at Kuelap, Amazonas, Peru

ABSTRACT

We report the results of drone lidar survey at a high-elevation archaeological site in the Chachapoyas region of Peruvian Amazonia. Unlike traditional airborne remote sensing, drone lidar produces very high-density measurements at a wide range of scan angles by operating at low altitudes and slow flight speeds. These measurements can resolve near vertical surfaces and novel dimensions of variability in architectural datasets. We show in a case study at Kuelap that the number of detected structures almost exactly matches the number reported from previous ground level surveys, and we use these data to quantify the relative circularity and size frequency distribution of architectural structures. We demonstrate variability in domestic architecture that was obscured in previous models produced using low-resolution remote sensing. Spatial analysis of these attributes produces new hypotheses about the site’s construction history and social organization.

KEYWORDS:

• Lidar
• UAV
• Drone
• architecture
• Peru
• Chachapoya
• Kuelap

Acknowledgments

Funding for this research was provided through a grant from the National Geographic Committee on Research and Exploration (HJ-044R-17). We would like to thank Jorge Trajo Ramos, Manuel Malaver, Jorge Chiguala, Jaime Jimenez, José la Torre, Alejandro Cuipal, Alcira Chavez, Llony Cuipal, Ema Perea Rios, David Blair, Henry Johnson, and the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. Cushman’s research has also been supported by a Presidential Fellowship from Brown University and a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributors

Parker VanValkenburgh (Ph.D. 2012, Harvard University) is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Brown University, head of the Brown Digital Archaeology Library 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 and is co-editor, with Steven Wernke, of GeoPACHA: Geospatial Platform for Andean History, Culture, and Archaeology.

K. C. Cushman received her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University and the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society and is postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Luis Jaime Castillo (Ph.D. 2012, University of California, Los Angeles) is Professor of Archaeology at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, directs the San Jose de Moro Archaeological Program and the Digital Archive of Cultural Heritage. He is Foreign Associate member of the National Academy of Sciences and a National Geographic Society Explorer and has served as Vice Minister of Cultural Patrimony and Minister of Culture in Peru.

Carol Rojas Vega is an archaeological researcher based in Lima Peru and co-director of the Paisajes Arqueológicos de Chachapoyas Project, as well as other archaeological projects in Peru.

Carson B. Roberts is a Senior Applications Engineer at Headwall Photonics, Inc. His work concentrates on remote sensing and hyperspectral and LiDAR data analysis.

Charles Kepler is s a Manufacturing Engineer at Headwall Photonics, Inc. He is chief pilot for Headwall’s UAV operations, and supervises the construction and testing of UAV systems.

James Kellner (Ph.D. 2008, University of Georgia) is the Peggy and Henry D. Sharpe Jr. Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, and an Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University. He is a member of the Science Team of the NASA Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation, which placed a waveform lidar sensor on the International Space Station.

ORCID

Parker VanValkenburgh http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4289-6170

K. C. Cushman http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3464-1151