Archaeologist uses satellite imagery to explore ancient Mexico

RIT professor Bill Middleton uses novel approach to study Zapotec culture

Satellite imagery obtained from NASA will help archeologist Bill Middleton peer into the ancient Mexican past. In a novel archeological application, multi- and hyperspectral data will help build the most accurate and most detailed landscape map that exists of the southern state of Oaxaca, where the Zapotec people formed the first state-level and urban society in Mexico.

“If you ask someone off the street about Mexican archeology, they’ll say Aztec, Maya. Sometimes they’ll also say Inca, which is the wrong continent, but you’ll almost never hear anyone talk about the Zapotecs,” says Middleton, acting chair of the Department of Material Culture Sciences and professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Rochester Institute of Technology. “They had the first writing system, the first state society, the first cities. And they controlled a fairly large territory at their Zenith—250 B.C. to 750 A.D.”

The process of state formation varied across the Zapotec realm. Sometimes it involved conquest, and other times it was more economically driven. Archeologists like Middleton are interested in different aspects of society that emerged in the process, such as social stratification and the development and intensification of agriculture and economic specialization.

Middleton’s study will explore how the Oaxacan economy and environment changed as the Zapotec state grew and then collapsed into smaller city-states. Funding from NASA and National Geographic will also help Middleton build a picture of how climate and vegetation patterns have changed over time.

“For the past 4,000 years, human activities have been a factor in environmental change,” Middleton says. “And there are some parts of Mesoamerica that we have pretty good evidence that the environment we see today is the catastrophic result of ancient agricultural practices.” Middleton will focus on two sites in the Chichicapam Valley located in between two of the major arms of the central valleys of Zapotec. The National Geographic-funded portion of the study began last summer when he documented important archeological sites and selected candidates for excavation.

Imagery from Earth Observing 1 and Landsat satellites obtained over three years will help Middleton identify the natural resources found at archeological sites. He will work with colleagues John Kerekes and David Messinger along with graduate student Justin Kwon in RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science to analyze the large amounts of data taken at different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. Their own research uses similar techniques to analyze urban landscapes, and inspired Middleton to apply the technology to archeological landscapes.

“We are excited to be collaborating with Bill in this application of remote sensing technology to archaeological study,” says Kerekes. “This project shows a true strength of RIT with an environment that allows physical scientists and engineers like us to easily work together with a social scientist like Bill.”