Space and Time in the Lurín Valley, Central Coast Peru: GIS Applications in Archaeology

Meet Dr. Christopher Milan, DePaul University at the next STEM Speaker Series event on Thursday, December 9 at 3:30 P.M. in the STEM Center ( 175C).

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a type of software used to manipulate spatial data.
The technology has a wide variety of uses across a number of fields. For archaeologists, GIS is a means of aggregating data from various sites and the environment and then analyzing the aforementioned data in order to recreate ancient landscapes. During the Peruvian Initial Period (2000 – 800 BC), people on the central coast of Peru created a number of U-shaped temples in close proximity to one another. In the Lurín Valley, for example, there are eight temples. Using different spatial analyses it is possible to understand the role of U-shaped temples in organizing early complex societies, as well as how the communities centered around these temples interacted with one another.