What questions was Mark Lehner the archaeologist concerned with answering when he first began his excavation at the Giza Plateau?

Dr. Mark Lehner's first excavations at Giza were in the Sphinx enclosure. Preparations for that excavation made him realize that there were no scale maps of the famous Sphinx. Dr. Lehner spent five years mapping the Sphinx, which led him to wonder what could be learned by mapping the entire Giza Plateau to understand relationships between the monuments and the landscape.

The Giza Plateau Mapping Project led Dr. Lehner to write a journal article speculation about where the vast settlement that housed the construction crews of the pyramids was located. In the late 1980s, his team began digging in that area, south of the Wall of the Crow, and there they found the 4th Dynasty settlement of the pyramid builders. His team continues that work today.