‘Many sites were hidden in plain sight’: How digital tools are revolutionizing archeology

Hidden parts of deep human history are being revealed by digital tools that generate new troves of data for archaeologists to analyze and preserve.

Why it matters: On-the-ground excavation can be expensive, time-intensive and destructive. Digital techniques — if researchers can access them — could help to focus their search and hasten discoveries.

Archaeology for the past 150 years has been a “hit and miss practice,” says Elaine Sullivan, an Egyptologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Light detecting and ranging (lidar) measurements, virtual reality, 3D modeling and other technologies have become powerful tools for archaeologists.

Aircraft-based lidar — which emits a laser pulse and measures the return time of light reflected from an object or feature of a landscape to determine the distance to it — can penetrate vegetation and give a precise 3D image of the ground below.

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But it has also revealed massive features concealed by their sheer size, even in more open land.

In a recent study, archaeologists analyzed lidar data and found nearly 500 new Mesoamerican sites across a large swath of southern Mexico.

“Many sites were hidden in plain sight,” says archaeologist Takeshi Inomata of the University of Arizona.

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