Crafting architecture in 3D GIS archaeological databases of sites from Bolivia
Christine Hastorf, Professor
Anthropology
Applications for Spring 2025 are closed for this project.
Plotting archaeological plant and animal food data in 3D from a prehistoric archaeological project located in the Altiplano of Bolivia. The goal is to have a working GIS data base of excavated material so that the distribution and location of artifacts and ecofacts can be visualized.
This project is part of an environmental archaeological investigation into the use and presence of plant remains in human settlements on the Taraco Peninsula in lake Titicaca, dating to approximately 1000 BCE - 400 CE. A major goal of the project is the visualization in 3D of the location of selected plant remains to understand how they were incorporated into the daily lives of its inhabitants. The project utilizes GIS and geospatial methods using a variety of open-source platforms (QGIS, R) to render the architecture excavated on the peninsula alongside the location (and densities) of the plant and animal remains themselves.
Role: This research project is to work with two archaeological scholars to add and edit architectural features to a GIS database of a large prehistoric archaeological project located in the Altiplano of Bolivia. The primary task of the applicant will be to arrange and trace archaeological architecture in a GIS framework to be rendered in both 2D and 3D. Applicants will 1) georeference images, 2) create GIS vector data features (polygons, polylines, etc.), and use GIS shape manipulation functions such as clipping, union, and buffering.
Qualifications: At minimum applicants must have experience with recent versions of ESRI ArcPro and / or QGIS. Knowledge of geocomputation using open source languages such as R or Python is a plus.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Christine Hastorf
Hours: 3-5 hrs
Social Sciences Mathematical and Physical Sciences