Abstract

Barbara L. Stark and Christopher P. Garraty
Parallel Archaeological and Visibility Survey in the Western Lower Papaloapan Basin, Veracruz, Mexico
Journal of Field Archaeology 33 (2008) 177--196

We evaluate a relatively intensive Gulf lowland survey in Mesoamerica to assess the effects of topographic and ground visibility as well as vegetation types on the archaeological information recovered. Surveys conducted between 1986 and 1989 and between 1998 and 2002 in the Western Lower Papaloapan Basin, Veracruz, Mexico, focused on individual archaeological features rather than sites. The features are predominantly residential earthen mounds, but monumental earthen architecture occurs intermittently. We discuss variation in feature densities according to topographic visibility, ground visibility, and the nature of the vegetation cover, and we estimate the number of features that that the survey crew failed to detect due to variable visibility conditions. Although 3690 features were recorded, our more reliable estimates indicate that a substantial number (between 1056 and 1327 features) may have gone undetected due to a variety of vegetation and visibility conditions.

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