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Ground truthing of remotely identified fortifications on the Central Coast of Perú

2011; Elsevier BV; Volume: 38; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.jas.2011.02.035

1095-9238

Margaret Brown Vega, Nathan Craig, R. Lindo,

Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies

Remote imagery, including freely available satellite images viewed in Google Earth® and historic aerial photographs, was used to identify anomalies in a 25,000 km2 macroregion encompassing 13 river valleys along the Peruvian coast. These anomalies, located atop hills and mountains, were hypothesized prehispanic fortifications. A sample of remotely identified anomalies was ground truthed in the Huaura and Fortaleza Valleys on the Central Coast of Perú. 140 positive anomalies were documented and assessed using a simple defensibility index. Our results significantly increase the number of fortifications identified in both valleys. We demonstrate the efficacy of this method for locating fortifications in a very large region to facilitate the systematic documentation of these durable indicators of warfare.