We are happy to announce that the keynote speaker this year will be Dr. Marcello A. Canuto. Dr. Canuto is currently the Director of the Middle American Research Institute and Professor of Anthropology at Tulane University. He has conducted archaeological excavations in several regions of the Maya area at sites that span the Preclassic to Classic periods. His research has focused on the development and growth of socio-political complexity and he is a leading expert in the application of lidar analyses.

Please join us on November 17, 2023 at 5:00 pm at the UTSA Downtown Campus, Buena Vista Building, Aula Canaria Lecture Hall, for his keynote presentation titled:

Beyond the Beautiful Map: Toward Large-scale Modeling and Community-engaged Settlement Pattern Research

Despite the long-standing interest in Maya settlement patterns in Maya archaeology, the tropical forest has imposed practical and methodological constraints that have led academics toward local-scale analysis. Ambitious efforts to scale up local models using remote sensing have been continually thwarted by the regionalism and heterogeneity of the Maya Forest. The use of airborne laser scanning (lidar) as a direct-discovery technique capable of mapping enormous areas in minute detail has given the discipline’s macro-scale objectives new life. Lidar provides new approaches to reconstruct Maya settlement patterns at previously unreachable scales by simultaneously recording topography, archaeological settlement, anthropogenic landscape modification, and vegetation. Here, we use lidar-derived settlement and topographic data to develop a settlement suitability model that identifies constraints on settlement patterning and historical contingencies in the growth of individual cities. We also demonstrate how this approach might give significant information for local modern communities to better manage and steward the natural and cultural resources of locations where the Maya Forest still exists.

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