LaVA: Landscapes of the volcanic highlands of ancient Mesoamerica: a new insight from laser-based geoarchaeological mapping and luminescence dating

The multiplication of airborne laser scans (lidar) in Mesoamerica over the past decade is revolutionising our understanding of the settlement archaeology, as exceptionally large agrarian landscapes of terraces, walls, drained fields etc. have been discovered. However, agriculture - though nodal to pre-Hispanic societies and still today - remains little studied by archaeologists and the evolution of these landscapes needs to be mapped, dated and interpreted.

This is precisely the aim of the present project. We propose to export innovative approaches to landscape research to the context of central Mexico. We will implement a state-of-the-art methodology that will combine methods developed by Newcastle's McCord Centre for Landscape, including; Historic Landscape Characterization, tested to date across Europe and the Middle East; dating based on the revolutionary OSL-profiling method developed (see Kinnaird et al. 2017, Turner et al. 2021), and archaeological and geoecological mapping by lidar remote sensing, whose efficacy has been proven by the applicant's work in various Latin American countries (see Dorison et al. 2022).

The project is highly timely in three respects: it focuses on ancient agricultural landscapes that are largely under-documented in archaeology, particularly in the Mesoamerican context; it proposes ambitious and innovative methodological developments; and it will record the richness of landscapes endangered by urban growth and profit-farming in Mexico. Among the main results, the project will establish the first detailed dataset for agrarian landscapes in the study area.

It will provide unprecedented and long-overdue dating of agricultural remains, because although poorly documented until now, these are at the heart of the debates on the development of complex societies in Mesoamerica. Finally, it will provide important data and approaches to underpin the future management of these landscapes as valuable heritage assets.