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Prehistoric Footpaths Lure Archaeologists Back To Costa Rica - UPDATES

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Bianca
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« on: November 06, 2008, 10:31:23 am »









"It appears that the cemetery was not the only sacred place, but so was the territory between the village and the cemetery, and the proper path use was to access the cemetery along precisely the same path used by their ancestors," he said. "The process of entering and leaving cemeteries was part of a belief system that included ceremonial feasting, tomb construction and the breaking of special pottery, grinding stones and other ritual activities at the cemeteries," said Sheets.

Images of the tiny footpaths, some 1,500 years old, were made by a NASA aircraft and the commercial satellite, IKONOS, equipped with instruments that can "see" in the light spectrum invisible to humans. The infrared cameras picked up a unique "signature" that caused the paths to show up as thin red lines in the images.

Packing satellite data and GPS satellite receivers, Sheets, NASA archaeologist Tom Sever, NASA remote-sensing specialist Dan Irwin and CU students Errin Weller, Michelle Butler and Devin White took off on the trail of the ancient ones last summer.

One surprise was that about 90 percent of the ancient pottery sherds from the cemeteries apparently were brought in by people on the Pacific side of the drainage who toted them on paths to the cemetery.

"This is a fascinating situation," said Sheets. "It appears these people may have had a much more complex network of social, economic and religious contact between isolated villages on both sides of the divide than we would have expected."

The sherds evidence collected in late July indicated ceremonial funerals and elaborate feasting after burial -- which included cooking, eating, drinking, sleeping and the smashing of elaborate pots and stones on graves -- may have included very disparate groups.

"My research interests include understanding the everyday lives of ancient people and applying remote-sensing techniques to locate prehistoric sites," said doctoral student Errin Weller. "My experiences in central Costa Rica with CU-Boulder and NASA participants provided a singular opportunity to combine the use of high-resolution satellite imagery and archaeology."

Master's student Michelle Butler who plotted specific points along the footpath with GPS satellite receivers as part of her work, said the high-tech tools have a huge future in archaeology. "Being able to pinpoint paths and cemeteries used by people over 1,000 years ago is exciting work, and helps us develop a much better picture of who these people were and how they used the landscape."


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Adapted from materials provided by University Of Colorado At Boulder.
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 MLA University Of Colorado At Boulder (2003, October . Prehistoric Footpaths In Costa Rica Indicate Intimate Ties With Villages, Cemeteries. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 6, 2008, from



http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2003/10/031008064657.htm



http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031008064657.htm
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