A UAV-lidar system to map Amazonian rainforest and its ancient landscape transformations

In this article, a robust unmanned aerial remote-sensing system, equipped with a survey-grade Lidar scanner and a multispectral camera system, assembled to study pre-Columbian Amazonian archaeology is presented. The data collected from this system will be utilized in a novel inter-disciplinary way by combining these data with in situ data collected by archaeologists, archae-botanists, paleoecologists, soil scientists, and landscape ecologists to study the nature and scale of the impact of pre-Columbian humans in transforming the landscapes of Amazonian rainforest. The outputs of this research will also inform future policy on the conservation, sustainability, and ecological state of the forest.