2015 AAAS Annual Meeting (12-16 February 2015)

February 12 - 16, 2015

Imaging the Past: Using New Information Technologies To Nurture Historical Analysis

Advances in information and imaging technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for better understanding patterns of historical change over long periods of time. The ability to bring together vast data from various sources and visualize their analysis in the form of multifaceted, interactive maps or graphs will open new avenues for research and scientific discovery. But using information and imaging technologies still pose substantial challenges, among them the quality of data and information uncertainty and data access and availability. Exchange across disciplines can stimulate new insights and provide new directions of research. This symposium will bring together speakers of cutting-edge research projects to provide examples of how they use novel information and imaging technologies to analyze long-term, complex historic developments. The panel will provide a birds-eye view on the evolution of languages, societies, and landscapes in space and time: investigating the long-term historical role of humans in shaping Amazonian landscapes using laser imaging detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology and microdrones; analyzing the influence of landscape change on linguistic development by applying geographic information systems (GIS) to linguistic data; and using satellite imagery to study the impact of trans-Saharan trade and contact on processes of state formation in Central pre-Islamic Sahara.