March 8, 2008 David R. Hixson, Satellites, Surveys and
Simulations: Settlement Archaeology of Ancient Chunchucmil, NW
Yucatan, Mexico
David Hixson highlighted recent advances in settlement pattern studies
of NW Yucatan, in and around the classic period Maya site of
Chunchucmil in his presentation. Many different remote sensing
platforms, such as multispectral LANDSAT imagery, AIRSAR and SRTM data,
and aerial photography have been used to study the area of the North
Western Yucatan, beginning with the Atlas program of the 1970s.
David has been working in a project directed by Dr. Bruce Dahlin, of
Howard University, with the permission of Mexico's National Institute
of Anthropology and History (INAH) and funded by the National Science
Foundation. In the work David Hixson has been pursuing in the areas
surrounding Chunchucmil, imaging data sets have been compared to
ground-reconnaissance and mapping operations conducted on previously
undocumented sites and features in the seasonal western Maya wetlands.
The lack of forest cover in this predominantly semi arid region has
promoted clearer aerial surveying. The combination of ground and
aerial surveying has proven particularly efficacious in locating
archaeological sites and testing climatological hypotheses in the more
remote areas, as well as nearer to the urban center. Chunchucmil
seems to have been a profitable trading center, as it was located at
the intersection of trading routes for salt, from the nearby coast, and
exotic obsidian. It was also the first dry location inland of the
regularly flooded areas that stretched from the city to the coast. The
end of the presentation highlighted the utility of the latest
inexpensive 3D reconstruction techniques to simulate the human spatial
dimension of living in or traversing an ancient Maya center. David
actually took advantage of gaming technology to reconstruct a dynamic
three dimensional view of Chunchucmil, as it might well have appeared.
The talk was enjoyed by all who attended, and, as usual, the questions
and discussion continued long after the talk concluded!
David R. Hixson is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Tulane University in
New Orleans. He began his work among the Maya during his teenage
years, when he volunteered for an NGO that provided public services to
remote Maya villages and United Nations Guatemalan refugee camps.
Soon after, he gained his B.A. in Anthropology from University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and began working as a graphic designer
for a local archaeology firm. Together with his travels in
Mexico, these combined interests led to his popular website,
Mesoamerican Photo Archives, as well as a fascination with remote
sensing and archaeological communications. David was awarded a
NASA fellowship for his dissertation work at the archaeological site of
Chunchucmil, which focuses upon the use of satellite and airborne
imagery to detect undiscovered archaeological sites in the western Maya
wetlands of Yucatan. Most recently, he organized a session at the
SAA regarding the use of 3D graphics programs in archaeological
communications.
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