The Center for Archaeology and Remote Sensing (CARS) is affiliated with the Colorado State University Anthropology and Geography Department. It is also affiliated with the Earth Archive project.
MISSION
The mission of CARS is to focus faculty expertise for projects and associated training opportunities focused on the use of archaeological remote sensing for the identification and conservation of threatened cultural resources globally. CARS enables collaboration within and between diverse disciplines/units at CSU and opens up the opportunity for partnerships between CARS and commercial LiDAR providers and equipment manufacturers.
NARRATIVE
Accelerating rates of earth-system change are endangering the last wild spaces of the planet and the loss of this heritage is a global catastrophe. As we have argued in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences new applications of technology such as Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), along with other remote sensing techniques, represent a paradigm shift for archaeology/conservation because they create indelible, 3D, high-resolution scans of the earth that preserve cultural and ecological patrimony in perpetuity (Chase et al. 2012).
CSU Faculty members in the Department of Anthropology/Geography have taken a leading role in the archaeological use of LiDAR/remote sensing performing award winning research in several regions of Latin America, most notably discovering the ancient cities of Angamuco, Mexico, and the City of the Jaguar, Honduras, as well as acting as consultants on other high-profile case studies.
Key Staff
Co-Director: Chris Fisher
Co-Director: Stephen Leisz
Lab. Manager Lawrence Beals