Transformations of the Guianese territory during the colonial era through the study of LiDAR data

International audienceFor decades, archeologists have proven again and again that the Amazonian rainforest had not always been the unchecked and seemingly hostile environment Europeans still tend to deem it. Stephen Rostain’s studies of the remains of raised fields in French Guiana, combined with the discovery of more and more ring-ditched hills, have demonstrated that the Natives had already deeply transformed the landscape when Europeans first settled in the vicinity of Cayenne. Surprisingly, the mutations of the Guianese territory during the colonial era have globaly been ignored, in spite of the fact that historical archeaology is largely focused on former plantations, which formed the basis of the territorial organisation of the colony until the mid-19th century. The recent increase in available LiDAR data offers the opportunity to approach this matter in multiple ways, from the identification of small settlements or forgotten roads to the mapping of entire plantations or, later, penitentiaries. The presentation will focus on a few examples that show the interest of an archaeogeographical approach in the study of colonial sites in French Guiana