Adjunct Research Associate Margaret Brown Vega, Nathan Craig, and their Peruvian colleague have paper accepted for publication in the Journal of Archaeological Science

Margaret Brown Vega, Nathan Craig, and their Peruvian colleague have paper accepted for publication in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The paper is entitled "Ground Truthing of Remotely Identified Fortifications on the Central Coast of Perú", by Margaret Brown Vega, Nathan Craig, and Gerbert Asencios Lindo

Abstract
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.