Angkor Archaeological Landscapes using lidar (Evans, Damian H. et al, 2013)

Fig. 3. The central area of Angkor, showing the “walled city” of Angkor Thom above Angkor Wat. Upper: lidar digital terrain model, with 1-m resolution. Red lines indicate postmedieval linear features including roads and canals; other features are Angkor era. Lower Left: conventional high-resolution satellite imagery of the central area, showing archaeological topography obscured by forest. Lower Right: previously documented (prelidar) archaeological features in the central area (2, 4).

Angkor Archaeological Landscapes (Evans, Damian H. et al, 2013)

http://www.pnas.org/content/110/31/12595.full.pdf PNAS July 30, 2013 Vol. 110, 31 12595-12600

Uncovering archaeological landscapes at Angkor using lidar

Damian H. Evans et al.

Edited by Arlen F. Chase, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, and accepted by the Editorial Board June 13, 2013 

Previous archaeological mapping work on the successive medieval capitals of the Khmer Empire located at Angkor, in northwest Cambodia (∼9th to 15th centuries in the Common Era, C.E.), has identified it as the largest settlement complex of the preindustrial world, and yet crucial areas have remained unmapped, in particular the ceremonial centers and their surroundings, where dense forest obscures the traces of the civilization that typically remain in evidence in surface topography. Here we describe the use of airborne laser scanning (lidar) technology to create high-precision digital elevation models of the ground
surface beneath the vege- tation cover. We identify an entire, previously undocumented, for- mally planned urban landscape into which the major temples such as Angkor Wat were integrated. Beyond these newly identified urban
landscapes, the lidar data reveal anthropogenic changes to the landscape on a vast scale and lend further weight to an emerging consensus that infrastructural complexity, unsustainable modes of subsistence, and climate variation were crucial factors in the decline of the classical Khmer civilization.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/157107776/Angkor-Archaeological-Landscapes-Evans-Damian-H-et-al-2013