Provider: Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic

TY  - JOUR
JO  - Anthropologie (Brno)
TI  - COUPLED TIME LAPSE PHOTOGRAPHY
AND PHOTOGRAMMETRY FOR HIGH PRECISION
MAPPING OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR
IN ETHNOARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH
AU  - Surovell TA
AU  - O´Brien MJ
AU  - Pelton SR
Y1  - 2023
VL  - 61
IS  - 3
PB  - Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic
SN  - 0323-1119
SP  - 303
EP  - 314
KW  - Ethnoarchaeology – Photogrammetry – Time lapse photography – Mapping – Spatial analysis
N2  - 
N2  - Ethnoarchaeological studies attempt to link human behavior to material remains for the purpose of
developing archaeological method and theory. Traditional studies in spatial ethnoarchaeology have focused on mapping
features and refuse, but the spatial distribution of the behaviors that produced them, the thing that interests us most,
has for good reason gone largely undocumented. Until recently, it was not technically possible to map people in space
in a way that is simultaneously accurate, precise, and unobtrusive. In this paper, we discuss the use of time-lapse
photography and photogrammetry for the direct, frequent, and high precision mapping of human behavior in ethnographic
contexts. Using two experiments, we show that this method can produce human locational data that are accurate and
have submeter precision, typically of 25 cm or less. We illustrate the utility of this method by examining how the exterior
space of a camp of Dukha reindeer herders in northern Mongolia is divided by household. We argue this method
provides much needed data on how humans use space while allowing for the collection of ancillary behavioral and
contextual information from imagery. As such, time-lapse photography and photogrammetry could become part of the
standard toolkit for ethnoarchaeological research.
ER  -