Sherman Horn III

Sherman Horn III

HD Analytical Solutions, Inc.

Research Scientist

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LiDAREl PilarMayaSwampSurvey
Published on Apr 30, 2017

Return to El Pilar!

We made our first working trip to El Pilar last Thursday, April 27th, which included a return to a small mound cluster on the periphery of the low-lying, seasonal swamp in the northeast of the Rese...

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Published on Apr 22, 2017

The Blog is Up!

I've actually got the blog up and running! You can find it here. I have a short introductory post and a funny (to me, at least) vignette about packing for a long field season and traveling to Beliz...

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Published on Apr 20, 2017

Welcome to BRASS Base!

Greetings from BRASS Base in lovely Belize! Anabel has been here since April 8th, preparing the way for fieldwork, and Sherman arrived on the 15th with our new assistant James. Most...

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Published on Feb 09, 2017

New Year Update to Our Backers

The New Year got off to a quick start and continues at a breakneck pace! Anabel and I have been busy working on several aspects of our research at El Pilar, and we wanted to give you a quick update...

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Published on Nov 04, 2016

Success!

We did it! A huge thank-you to everyone who helped us exceed our funding target and win the Archaeology Grant Challenge! We were in a closely contested race with competition from some amazing archa...

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Published on Nov 02, 2016

Now You See It, Now You Don't: Why We Still Need Ground Survey

We've just uploaded a new video showing Anabel Ford and Belize Institute of Archaeology staff members surveying a terraced area in the forest at El Pilar. Archaeologists have known about ancient Ma...

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Published on Oct 26, 2016

Boots on the Ground: Survey in the Maya Forest

Our last three Lab Notes show how large, medium-sized, and even some smaller structures can be clearly seen in the El Pilar LiDAR images. Recognizing ancient Maya structures from the air and findi...

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Published on Oct 24, 2016

Looking at the Swamp: What the LiDAR "Sees"

You can probably tell from our last Lab Note what an incomparable aid LiDAR has been to settlement survey at El Pilar. The ability of LiDAR to "see" through the forest canopy revealed substantial s...

LiDAR
El Pilar
Maya
Swamp
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Published on Oct 18, 2016

Seeing the Big Picture with LiDAR

The LiDAR images in the last Lab Note show how this technology can be used to map large structures through thick tropical foliage. Those scenes represent a tiny fraction of the El Pilar Archaeologi...

LiDAR
El Pilar
Survey
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Reply to:Helen Courtney Helen Courtney
More to come very soon!
Apr 20, 2017
Project: People of the Swamp: LiDAR and "Invisible" Structures at El Pilar
Reply to:Pedro LondonPedro London
Thanks for your comment and support, Pedro. This Experiment was designed to fund a part of the larger El Pilar Project, which Anabel Ford has been directing for over 20 years. Dr. Ford has been very interested in ancient Maya agriculture and has incorporated sustainability investigations into her...more
Nov 17, 2016
Project: People of the Swamp: LiDAR and "Invisible" Structures at El Pilar
Reply to:Jennifer EmeryJennifer Emery
Large structures at El Pilar are faced with limestone masonry blocks that were probably quarried from the ridge-lands around the center. Smaller structures, like the houses and other buildings that most people used, were made of perishable materials that haven't survived. Luckily for us, many sma...more
Oct 24, 2016
Project: People of the Swamp: LiDAR and "Invisible" Structures at El Pilar
Reply to:Jennifer EmeryJennifer Emery
Looting is a huge problem in the Maya area, and there are several different ways potential looters can discover structures. Modern-day people have been living around El Pilar for some time, and it's possible that some people happened across the monumental structures while hunting in the forest or...more
Oct 19, 2016
Project: People of the Swamp: LiDAR and "Invisible" Structures at El Pilar
Reply to:Jennifer EmeryJennifer Emery
Great questions! The large dotted lines are modern roads that run through the Reserve. You can see that the one running through the monumental core corresponds to the north-south white line in the map in our previous Lab Note. Your next two questions are more difficult to answer. Estimating anci...more
Oct 19, 2016
Project: People of the Swamp: LiDAR and "Invisible" Structures at El Pilar