Neotropical Forest Biomass and Trait Data for Maya and Amazon Archaeological Sites

Peten, Guatemala and the Amazon basin are the geographic focus of this dataset, which contains data and code to reproduce figures for a study on how ancient human occupation alters modern forest traits, structure, and biomass. The dataset, created by Christopher Doughty and last updated in April 2026, includes ground measurements and remote sensing data from GEDI and trait sensors. It supports findings that forests on former Maya settlements have higher biomass and that Amazonian forests near archaeological sites show altered canopy structure.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the relationship between archaeological sites and modern forest biomass based on remote sensing data.
• Modeling the impact of ancient land use on leaf traits and species composition based on ground measurements.
• Testing remote sensing datasets for regional-scale archaeological mapping based on biomass and leaf trait signatures.

Strengths

• Includes data from two distinct study regions: Peten, Guatemala and the Amazon basin.
• Combines ground measurements with satellite-derived data from GEDI and trait remote sensing.
• Dataset size is 146.3 MB, indicating substantial supporting material.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Christopher Doughty.

Collection Method

Likely contains ground measurements and processed remote sensing data from GEDI and trait sensors.

Time Range

Study references ancient occupation (400 BCE to 800 CE) and modern forest measurements.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-14 16:23:52; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Peten, Guatemala (Maya lowlands) and the Amazon basin.