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Laser Scanning at Tiwanaku

 

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 Laser Scanning at Tiwanaku, Bolivia

 Image of the Kalasasaya monument, Tiwanaku, Bolivia
Nestled high in the Bolivian mountains along a flat uprising of land referred to as the altiplano, the city of Tiwanaku was settled from around A.D. 500-950. The people of Tiwanaku constructed large mounds, platforms, and stone monuments to form the core of their city whose influence stretched across the altiplano throughout the Lake Titicaca Basin. Settled before the time of the Inca, Tiwanaku was declared the birthplace for the people of the Andes when the site was discovered during Incan conquests in the 1500’s.

 

In the summer of 2005, researchers from CAST traveled to Bolivia to collect high density, three dimensional survey data at Tiwanaku.  In 2006, CAST returned for a second season of survey to more fully document this UNESCO World Heritage site.  In addition to the Optech laser scanner used in 2005, a Minolta VIVID 9i was used in the 2006 survey.  While the monumental core of the site was surveyed with the long-range Optech system, artifacts and architectural details were the primary target of laser scanning with the Minolta system.

Adam Barnes scanning at Tiwanaku

Christopher Goodmaster scanning at Tiwanaku

In addition to archaeological laser scanning, CAST team members have undertaken high-resolution shallow subsurface geophysical survey as well as digital aerial photogrammetry at this unique and important archaeological site.

Data from the various surveys conducted at Tiwanaku is available in the Tiwanaku 3D Data Section of the InVirMet Data Repository.  For more information on the project and on the different surveys conducted at Tiwanaku by CAST,  please visit the Tiwanaku Project pages.

This work was supported, in part, by two NSF grants:

BCS-0321286 Acquisition of a High Accuracy/Resolution Landscape and Structure Characterization System (HARLS-CS) for Anthropology, Archaeology, Architecture, Biology and Geosciences and by

Grant IIS-0431070 Computing and Retrieving 3D Archaeological Structures from Subsurface Surveying.