Effectiveness and Limitations of Low‐Cost Aerial Survey of Archaeological Stone Architecture in Arid Andean Contexts (La Rioja, Northwest Argentina)

ABSTRACT Stone building or stonemasonry was a distinctive phenomenon in most of the agropastoral societies of northwestern Argentina. Previous studies have documented residential architecture through various survey methods, making it difficult to create a consistent topographic and planimetric record and to generate a database capable of detecting building changes on a broad spatial and chronological scale. Here, we present a low‐cost drone survey method based on the study of 11 archaeological sites located in an arid Andean area of La Rioja province. Twenty‐eight flights were performed at different altitudes, taking into account different vegetation conditions and topographic features. Several variables such as flight altitude, visibility of structures, vegetation levels and ground sampling distance (GSD) were measured. The data obtained allowed an accurate and detailed assessment of architectural information such as area, size and number of residential enclosures. Based on these data, a set of flight altitude and GSD values is proposed to optimize the survey time and improve the resulting products adaptable to the different levels of detail required.