FINDING THE FOREST THROUGH THE TREES: WHAT LIDAR REVEALED ABOUT THE COCO CHAN LANDSCAPE

LiDAR has proven to be a revolutionary tool, allowing archaeologists to view the landscape below the forest coverage. As such, LiDAR is lauded as a way to conduct rapid preliminary surveys of large areas currently under dense jungle. It also is valuable in areas that are under threat from agricultural expansion and that often clears forests with little regard to the ancient environment, cultural or natural. This paper presents the recent findings from LiDAR survey conducted around Coco Chan, Northcentral Belize, as part of the 2022 NCALM Belize Campaign. Here we were able to survey land currently in three different conditions: forested, cleared and ploughed, and areas having required substantial modern anthropogenic (i.e. cultural) modification. The results of this work have proven highly informative archaeologically regarding how the ancient Maya adapted to and used the environment. These data also are valuable in our on-going conversations with Mennonite farmers for demonstrating how understanding past practices, and incorporating them into their current farming methods, can potentially lead to a better land-use practices and ideally more sustainable use of the landscape.