2024/10/01 by Luke Auld-Thomas, Marcello A. Canuto, Adriana Velázquez Morlet +5 · 2 voices · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Archaeological Research and Protection #Archaeology #Archaeology and Natural History #Computer science #Conservation Techniques and Studies #Geography #Space (punctuation)
paper · doi:10.15184/aqy.2024.148
openalex publication_date 2024/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/08
As airborne lidar surveys reveal a growing sample of urbanised tropical landscapes, questions linger about the sampling bias of such research leading to inflated estimates of urban extent and population magnitude. ‘Found’ datasets from remote sensing conducted for non-archaeological purposes and thus not subject to archaeological site bias, provide an opportunity to address these concerns through pseudorandom sampling. Here, the authors present their analysis of an environmental lidar dataset from Campeche, Mexico, which reveals previously unrecorded urbanism and dense regional-scale settlement. Both characteristics, the authors argue, are therefore demonstrably ubiquitous across the central Maya Lowlands.