Remote Sensing and GIS Analysis of a Maya City and Its Landscape: Holmul, Guatemala

  • Francisco Estrada-Belli
  • Magaly Koch
Chapter
Part of the Interdisciplinary Contributions To Archaeology book series (IDCA)

Abstract

Holmul is an ancient Maya city located in the dense tropical forest area of the Maya Bio-sphere reserve in northeastern Guatemala. The city is surrounded by subsidiary centers forming a yet to be understood complex political landscape. The current study of this largely unexplored region focuses on obtaining an understanding of landforms, ecozones, and their relationship to human settlement through the use of multi-source satellite images validated by archaeological foot survey. First, Tropical forest vegetation and landforms are identified by classifications of a combined set of imagery including Ikonos, Landsat ETM+, and airborne IFSAR sensors. From these data we derive a geomorphological map of the region which is used to identify the relationship of settlement with land features using a GIS modeling engine. The final products of these analyses are a better understanding of the environmental resources available to Maya settlement in the Holmul region as well as a predictive model for identifying new unexplored settlements.

Keywords

Remote Sensing Digital Elevation Model IKONOS Image Ancient Settlement Panchromatic Band 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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© Springer 2006

Authors and Affiliations

  • Francisco Estrada-Belli
  • Magaly Koch

There are no affiliations available

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