The Utilization of LiDAR to Detect Small Scale Archaeological Features

几千年来，人类一直在改变他们居住的环境。这是一种更容易看到，也更容易欣赏的东西，当它被大规模地完成时，比如埃及的古金字塔或印加的石城，甚至是人们每天居住和经过的建筑和道路。虽然这些更明显的环境变化对理解至关重要，但大多数社会并没有留下这些重大的变化，但他们仍然定期改变他们的景观。这种更小更实际的修改，虽然曾经有很多，但今天已经不那么明显了。为了充分认识人类改变环境以维持其福祉的能力，调查这些变化也很重要。考古学与自然科学相结合，将为这些影响的程度和范围带来新的认识。机载激光雷达（光探测和测距）是一个特别强大的跨学科工具，可以更好地理解过去的社会如何巧妙地根据他们的需求塑造世界，它可以创建详细的地形图，适合在地面上寻找微小的微地形印象。该项目使用公开的激光雷达来探测一组鲜为人知的微妙考古特征。该研究项目将为本科生提供直接参与跨学科研究的重要机会。该项目还将与当地部落社区合作，利用激光雷达进行文化遗产管理，探索这种工具作为一种非破坏性和有效的方法，在持续的现代发展可能破坏之前记录重要的文化特征。Howey和Palace及其研究团队将扩展他们最近使用激光雷达的工作，研究过去社会如何塑造他们的景观，通过建造食物储存设施来帮助他们度过稀缺时期。在欧洲人接触之前的一段时期，被称为晚期前接触时期（约公元1200-1600年），大湖北部地区相对低密度的狩猎采集者和早期农业社会开始建造地下食物储存坑，称为贮藏坑，以应对他们生存系统中的风险和不确定性。考古学家在100多年前首次记录了小的圆形洼地，这些洼地是贮藏坑的残余，但在贮藏坑中建造和储存食物的全部实践仍然未知。通过在北下半岛和东上半岛的密歇根州权威图像和激光雷达（MiSAIL）收集项目中开发和应用一个缓存坑探测程序，并将其应用于所有可用的激光雷达数据，以及一个地面实地调查系统，该研究项目将产生第一个系统的大湖区北部缓存坑考古特征的景观尺度记录。研究结果将用于评估群落如何定位缓存坑，以应对晚期前接触期相互关联的社会、经济和生态压力。该案例研究将有助于人们日益认识到小规模社会通过复杂的粮食储存做法等方式塑造其生存环境的能力。

Humans have been modifying the landscapes in which they live for millennia. This is something that is easier to see, and so appreciate, when it is done on a large scale, such as the ancient pyramids of Egypt or the stone cities of the Inca or even the buildings and roads one lives in and moves through every day. While these more obvious changes to the environment are critical to understand, most societies did not leave such major modifications behind but they nevertheless altered their landscapes on a regular basis. Such smaller and more practical modifications, although once numerous, are today much less obvious. In order to gain a full appreciation of the ability of humans to transform their surroundings in order to sustain their well-being, it is important to investigate these changes as well. Archaeology, working with the natural sciences, is positioned to bring to light new understandings of the extent and scope of these impacts. An especially powerful interdisciplinary tool for better understanding how past societies skillfully shaped the world for their needs is Airborne LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging), which creates detailed terrain maps suitable for finding small, microtopographic impressions on the ground. This project uses publically available LiDAR to detect a poorly understood set of subtle archaeological features. The research program will provide key opportunities for undergraduate students to become involved directly in hands-on interdisciplinary research. The project will also collaborate with local tribal communities on using LiDAR for cultural heritage management, exploring this tool as a non-destructive and efficient approach to recording significant cultural features before potential destruction by ongoing modern development.Drs. Howey and Palace and their research team will expand on their recent work with LiDAR to study the ways past societies shaped their landscapes to help them through times of scarcity by building food storage facilities. During the period just before European Contact, called the Late Precontact period (ca. AD 1200-1600), relatively low-density hunter-gatherer and early farming societies in the northern Great Lakes region began building subterranean food storage pits called cache pits to respond to risk and uncertainty in their subsistence systems. Archaeologists first recorded small circular depressions that are remnants of cache pits over 100 years ago but the full extent of the practice of building and storing food in cache pits remains unknown. By developing and applying a cache pit detection routine to all available LiDAR data from the Michigan Statewide Authoritative Imagery & LiDAR (MiSAIL) collection program in the northern Lower Peninsula and eastern Upper Peninsula and a system of ground-truthing field surveys, the research program will produce the first-ever systematic landscape-scale record of cache pit archaeological features in the northern Great Lakes region. The results will be used to assess how communities positioned cache pits in response to the mutually interlocking social, economic, and ecological stressors of Late Precontact. The case study will contribute to the growing appreciation of the capacity of small-scale societies to shape their environment for their survival, including through complicated food storage practices.