None shall pass: An overview of LiDAR data, methods and techniques for understanding Maya Landscape and Settlement Archaeology
with James Bacon
LiDAR has played an important role in understanding Maya settlements and Landscapes for 20 years now. LiDAR became popular for archaeological projects in the Maya area thanks to the impressive 2009 aerial Lidar scans of Caracol. However, LiDAR in this region can be traced as far back as 2000, with the first LiDAR recorded at Copan for Hurricane related flood prevention; or to 2005, with the first Maya focused scans done at Tikal by Berkeley. Now, in 2026, LiDAR technology, software and hardware have improved, together with the interpretations by archaeologists and GIS professionals, resulting in, overall, better LiDAR datasets that have increased our knowledge of the Maya. Nevertheless, academic articles over the years have focused on how best to interpret visualisations, missing the steps of the methods or techniques for checking and testing data. This stems from a reliance on using the data as delivered by the company or institution, in the form of an interpolated DEM. This generally provides the basis for the future analysis and visualisations without any further checking or testing of the underlying original point cloud data. This presentation demonstrates the importance of opening discussions regarding these techniques and methods, so that we all can improve our data and usage to better understand the Maya. Various methods will be explored for improving interpretations such as eliminating false positives or truncated features, to opening a space for edutainment as LiDAR is visually impressive and; therefore, a valuable tool for engaging with the public.
He started as a volunteer at El Pilar in 2017 for Dr. Anabel Ford, where he worked with the 2012/2013 LiDAR data. That summer he was also fortunate enough to volunteer with the excavations at Blue Creek and view their LiDAR data too. He continued working at El Pilar in 2018, 2019 and then returned in 2021, focusing on the mapping and ground truthing of the LiDAR data. In 2022, realising that he was passionate about working with LiDAR data, he began an MA in Anthropology at Trent University in Canada. During these studies between 2022-2024, he worked at Ka'kabish and Coco Chan in North Central Belize with Dr. Helen Haines and Dr. Alec McLellan, improving his knowledge on LiDAR data. In 2023, he assisted the fieldwork of the PAESY Project of Ms. Cristina Gonzalez-Esteban at San Clemente, Guatemala, collaborating on the processing of the LiDAR point cloud collected by the Drone, and the interpolation of the DEM for usage the next day.
Though still an archaeologist, James has directed his research towards working with LiDAR data, processing, improving the quality, fixing errors to create better data, and developing subsequent GIS-based research analysis such as Least Cost Path, Viewshed, Watershed or Volume Analysis. He also has extensive experience in fieldwork focusing on site mapping and ground truthing the data. His long term goal follows the concept of more with less, essentially aiming to maximise the archaeological knowledge out of the LiDAR and other similar methods.