Ground truthing of remotely identified fortifications on the Central Coast of Peru

Remote imagery, including freely available satellite images viewed in Google Earth (R) and historic aerial photographs, was used to identify anomalies in a 25,000 km(2) macroregion encompassing 13 river valleys along the Peruvian coast. These anomalies, located atop hills and mountains, were hypothesized prehispanic fortifications. A sample of remotely identified anomalies was ground truthed in the Huaura and Fortaleza Valleys on the Central Coast of Peril. 140 positive anomalies were documented and assessed using a simple defensibility index. Our results significantly increase the number of fortifications identified in both valleys. We demonstrate the efficacy of this method for locating fortifications in a very large region to facilitate the systematic documentation of these durable indicators of warfare. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.