Christopher T. Fisher

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Christopher T. Fisher (born 1967) is an American archaeologist.

Contents

Early days

Fisher grew up in Duluth and Spokane and is a first generation college student.

Education

Fisher began his academic studies as a percussion-performance major at Eastern Washington University. However, after going on an archaeology field-school, he changed his major to anthropology, getting a B.A. in anthropoogy from Michigan State University. [1] Thereupon, he got an M.A. and a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [2]

Professional activities

Fisher is the founder and co-director of the Earth Archive [3] as well as Professor of Anthropology at Colorado State University and a National Geographic Explorer. [4] His specialities include LiDAR and aspects of urban development and environmental change in Meso-America. [2] In particular, he has done extensive research on the Tarascan Empire in Michoacan, Mexico. [5] [4]

Fisher led a project to map the major Purépecha (Tarascan) city of Angamuco in Mexico. [6] [7] Fisher's use of LiDAR at the site of is possibly its first archaeological application in Mesoamerica. [8] "The images gathered after flying over Angamuco for just forty-five minutes revealed twenty thousand previously unknown archeological features, including a pyramid that, seen from overhead, is shaped like a keyhole." [8]

Fisher established the Earth Archive to map all of the Earth's terrain using laser technology on aircraft (LiDAR). The project was inspired by the threat of climate change to cultural heritage and the use of laser scanning to record archaeological sites by CyArk. [9]

Fisher was also the lead archaeologist and scientific director of the Mosquitia Archaeological Project (MAP) through which the World Heritage Site, the City of the Jaguar, also known as Ciudad Blanca was first documented using Airborne LiDAR. Fisher also led excavations at the ancient city in 2016 sponsored by National Geographic and the Honduran Government. [8]

Honors

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lidar</span> Method of spatial measurement using laser

Lidar is a method for determining ranges by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. Lidar may operate in a fixed direction or it may scan multiple directions, in which case it is known as lidar scanning or 3D laser scanning, a special combination of 3-D scanning and laser scanning. Lidar has terrestrial, airborne, and mobile applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Purépecha</span> Indigenous group of Michoacán, Mexico

The Purépecha are a group of Indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of Michoacán, Mexico, mainly in the area of the cities of Cherán and Pátzcuaro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monte Albán</span> Pre-Columbian archaeological site in Mexico

Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The site is located on a low mountainous range rising above the plain in the central section of the Valley of Oaxaca, where the latter's northern Etla, eastern Tlacolula, and southern Zimatlán and Ocotlán branches meet. The present-day state capital Oaxaca City is located approximately 9 km (6 mi) east of Monte Albán.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photogrammetry</span> Taking measurements using photography

Photogrammetry is the science and technology of obtaining reliable information about physical objects and the environment through the process of recording, measuring and interpreting photographic images and patterns of electromagnetic radiant imagery and other phenomena.

George L. Cowgill was an American anthropologist and archaeologist. He was a professor of anthropology at Arizona State University from 1990-2005, and research professor emeritus from 2005 until his death. He received his PhD from Harvard in 1963 with a dissertation on The Post-Classic Period in the Southern Maya Lowlands. Most of his career was devoted to research at the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacán. He taught at Brandeis University between 1960 and 1990. Cowgill made important contributions in a number of areas, including the archaeology of Mesoamerica, the comparative study of early states and cities, and quantitative methods in archaeology.

CyArk is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in Oakland, California, United States founded in 2003. CyArk's mission is to "digitally record, archive and share the world's most significant cultural heritage and ensure that these places continue to inspire wonder and curiosity for decades to come."

William Andrew "Bill" Saturno is an American archaeologist and Mayanist scholar who has made significant contributions toward the study of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. Saturno is a former director of the Proyecto San Bartolo-Xultun at the Instito de Antropologia e Historia in Guatemala, a former national space research scientist at the Marshall Space Flight Center, and a research associate at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Saturno has previously worked as an Assistant Professor of Archaeology at Boston University and MIT and as a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire.

Michael Alexander Arbuthnot is an archaeologist, instructor and archaeological filmmaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archaeology of Iowa</span> Aspect of archaeology in the United States

The archaeology of Iowa is the study of the buried remains of human culture within the U.S. state of Iowa from the earliest prehistoric through the late historic periods. When the American Indians first arrived in what is now Iowa more than 13,000 years ago, they were hunters and gatherers living in a Pleistocene glacial landscape. By the time European explorers visited Iowa, American Indians were largely settled farmers with complex economic, social, and political systems. This transformation happened gradually. During the Archaic period American Indians adapted to local environments and ecosystems, slowly becoming more sedentary as populations increased. More than 3,000 years ago, during the Late Archaic period, American Indians in Iowa began utilizing domesticated plants. The subsequent Woodland period saw an increase on the reliance on agriculture and social complexity, with increased use of mounds, ceramics, and specialized subsistence. During the Late Prehistoric period increased use of maize and social changes led to social flourishing and nucleated settlements. The arrival of European trade goods and diseases in the Protohistoric period led to dramatic population shifts and economic and social upheaval, with the arrival of new tribes and early European explorers and traders. During the Historical period European traders and American Indians in Iowa gave way to American settlers and Iowa was transformed into an agricultural state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archaeology</span> Study of human activity via material culture

Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. It is usually considered an independent academic discipline, but may also be classified as part of anthropology, history or geography.

Remote sensing techniques in archaeology are an increasingly important component of the technical and methodological tool set available in archaeological research. The use of remote sensing techniques allows archaeologists to uncover unique data that is unobtainable using traditional archaeological excavation techniques.

Chactún is the name of an archaeological site of the Mesoamerican Maya civilization in the state of Campeche, Mexico, in the northern part of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. The site of approximately 54 acres (22 ha) is located in the lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula, between the regions of Rio Bec and Chenes. There are some significant differences that have yet to be explained completely, which distinguish it from some of the other nearby sites.

Diane Zaino Chase is an American anthropologist and archaeologist who specializes in the study of the Ancient Maya. As of January 2023, she serves as senior vice president for academic affairs and provost of the University of Houston and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs for the University of Houston System.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arlen F. Chase</span> Mesoamerican archaeologist

Arlen F. Chase is a Mesoamerican archaeologist and a faculty member in the anthropology department at Pomona College, Claremont CA. Previously, he was a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and served a variety of administrative roles at the University of Central Florida over the course of his 32 year stay at that institution. He is noted for his long-term research at the ancient Maya city of Caracol, Belize and for exploring landscape traces of Maya civilization using lidar.

La Ciudad Blanca is a legendary settlement said to be located in the Mosquitia region of the Gracias a Dios Department in eastern Honduras. It is also known by the Pech name Kahã Kamasa. This extensive area of rainforest, which includes the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, has long been the subject of multidisciplinary research. Archaeologists refer to it as being a part of the Isthmo-Colombian Area of the Americas, one in which the predominant indigenous languages have included those in the Chibchan and Misumalpan families. Due to the many variants of the story in the region, most professional archaeologists doubt that it refers to any one actual settlement, much less one representing a city of the Pre-Columbian era. They point out that there are multiple large archaeological sites in the region and that references to the legendary White City cannot be proven to refer to any single place.

Marilyn Masson is a Maya archaeologist whose research has focused on social transformation and political economy of ancient Mesoamerican cultures in Mexico and Belize. She is a professor of Mesoamerican archaeology at the University at Albany, SUNY. She is a co-director of the PEMY project at the site of Mayapan in the Northern Yucutan Peninsula of Mexico.

Angamuco is the name given to a major urban settlement of the Purépecha civilization, (Tarascan) now in ruins hidden under vegetation, in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin of Michoacán, Mexico, and discovered in 2007. In 2012, using LiDAR technology, archaeologist Christopher Fisher and team detected an estimated 39,000 buildings at the site, roughly the same as Manhattan, on a territory of approximately 25 square kilometres (9.7 sq mi) (less than half of Manhattan's 59 square kilometres. Fisher believes the settlement was founded around 900 CE and reached peak importance from around 1000 to around 1350 CE with a population of over 100,000 – making it the most populous city in western Mexico at the time, and spanning a wider area than the Purépecha capital, Tzintzuntzan.

<i>The Lost City of the Monkey God</i> 2007 nonfiction book by Douglas Preston

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story is a 2017 nonfiction book by Douglas Preston. It is about a project headed by documentary filmmakers Steve Elkins and Bill Benenson that used LiDAR to search for archaeological sites in the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve of the Gracias a Dios Department in the Mosquitia region of eastern Honduras. The expedition was a joint Honduran-American multidisciplinary effort involving Honduran and American archaeologists, anthropologists, engineers, geologists, biologists and ethnobotanists.

Geological structure measurement by LiDAR technology is a remote sensing method applied in structural geology. It enables monitoring and characterisation of rock bodies. This method's typical use is to acquire high resolution structural and deformational data for identifying geological hazards risk, such as assessing rockfall risks or studying pre-earthquake deformation signs.

The Ancient Art Archive (AAA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation, visual documentation, and sharing of prehistoric works of art, particularly cave painting and petroglyphs, around the globe. The organization was founded in 2016 by photographer Stephen Alvarez following an assignment to photograph France's Chauvet Cave for National Geographic. As part of its mission to create and distribute 3D images of ancient artwork for educational purposes—many of which are threatened by climate change, mining operations, and vandalism—the Archive has launched the Mural of America, a collaboration of anthropologists, archaeologists, and Native American artists to document and provide cultural and scientific context to ten North American cultural landmarks. In 2022, members of the Archive team received wide media attention for their use of 3D photography in uncovering previously unseen cave art in Alabama's 19th Unnamed Cave.

References

  1. "Bio".
  2. 1 2 "Christopher T. Fisher".
  3. "The Earth Archive Project and 3D Mapping the Earth | Geography Realm". June 23, 2020.
  4. 1 2 "Explorer Home". explorers.nationalgeographic.org.
  5. "Chris Fisher | Speaker | TED".
  6. Davis, Nicola (2018-02-15). "Laser scanning reveals 'lost' ancient Mexican city 'had as many buildings as Manhattan'". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2024-02-17.
  7. Trevino, Julissa (2018-02-18). "Laser Mapping Shows Ancient City in Mexico Contained 40,000 Buildings". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2024-02-17.
  8. 1 2 3 Preston, Douglas (April 29, 2013). "The El Dorado Machine". The New Yorker via www.newyorker.com.
  9. Davis, Nicola (2019-10-11). "'Ultimate gift to future generations': plan to laser map all land on Earth". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2024-02-17.
  10. "Awards – AAA Archaeology Division".