Geospatial applications in southwest archaeology: an environmental suitability model for prehistoric surface pueblos

Ortega, Abraham Isaak (2023) Geospatial applications in southwest archaeology: an environmental suitability model for prehistoric surface pueblos. Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University.

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Abstract

Geospatial technologies in archaeology facilitate the interpretation of spatial context of both historic and prehistoric material culture as it is often expressed in both time and space. The primary focus of this research was to develop an environmental suitability model in ArcGIS Pro to determine high probability areas for prehistoric habitation sites primarily focusing on small, medium, and large masonry surface rooms within the Pleasant Valley Ranger District in the Tonto National Forest. By integrating decades of archaeological site records into a unified geodatabase, this research demonstrated viable data collection and organizational methods suitable for future comparative geospatial and statistical analysis of large archaeological datasets. The framework established for this research consisted of three main tasks: data collection; data coding, and spatial modeling. The integration of these three main tasks and the implementation of spatial operators such as containment, intersection, and proximity resulted in the identification of significant relationships between geology, biotic communities, and elevation and the locality of masonry surface pueblos.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Publisher’s Statement:	© Copyright is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Keywords:	Archaeology; Central Arizona; GIS; Sierra Ancha; Southwest; Tonto National Forest
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Student
Department/Unit:	Graduate College > Theses and Dissertations College of Social and Behavioral Science > Anthropology
Date Deposited:	18 Jun 2025 23:09
Last Modified:	18 Jun 2025 23:09
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/6181

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