Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The growing subdiscipline of archaeogaming addresses the intersection of archaeology and gaming in its broadest sense, via tabletop/board games, video games, card games, and myriad other types. It is primarily construed as the archaeology in and of games—this may include how archaeology is represented within gaming worlds, exploring the built landscape within a game, and examining material culture within a game, to list a few perspectives. Gaming remains an especially popular form of child and adult media, and it is particularly informative for us as archaeologists to understand how our discipline is presented in media forms that are engaged with by so many members of the public. The posters in this session highlight the educational and outreach-based impacts of archaeology in gaming. They explore a variety of game types in which the archaeological components receive varying levels of attention by the games themselves, exposing the need for archaeological insight into these portrayals of the field and its practitioners. The perspectives presented in this session represent a burgeoning subfield of critical media studies with a focus on archaeological content.

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-13 of 13)

  • Documents (13)

Documents
  • Arisen from the Ashes: Archaeology as Tabletop Gaming in “The Age of Silence” (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Drosos Kardulias. Jordan Schmidt. Andrew Savidge. Amber Swigart. Aaron Gonzalez.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. “The Age of Silence” is an ongoing “Dungeons and Dragons” campaign in which players’ final challenge will be decolonization amid apocalyptic war, either leading a cultural revolution, or joining the forgotten beneath the ashen waste. Realistic material culture is central to the campaign, with...

  • Behind the Creation of Archaeogames: Character Art (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Geena Hollis.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The interest in playing video and card games has increased rapidly throughout the past three decades. In the last two decades, the interest in archaeogaming has increased. When archaeogames are discussed, the conversation tends to relate around the educational aspect of the games, which is very...

  • Board Games, Gamification, and the Cultural Transmission of History: Constructing Narratives of the Past in Orthogonal (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Hampton.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How do we tell stories about the past? Historical-themed board games provide one such avenue for transmitting history. With the rise of independent publishers and crowdsourced publishing, recent opportunities to broaden the narrative and creative scope of these types of games have expanded...

  • Establishing a Space for Archaeologists in Gaming: The Development of the ArchaeoGaming Collective (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Krystiana Krupa. Rhianna Bennett. Anna Coon. William Farley.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The subdiscipline of archaeogaming has gained traction over the last several years, applying archaeological methods to and in video and tabletop games. Archaeology as a field focuses on concepts of space and place (and their roles in the past) quite literally, and it lends itself well to game...

  • A House of Ashes Is a House of Archaeology: An Argument for Using Video Games as Public Outreach (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Bryandra Owen.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In his 2018 book, “Archaeogaming,” Dr. Andrew Reinhard presented compelling arguments and research for video games and board games being important areas of study for archaeologists. In the years since the release of this titular book, many archaeologists who are also “gamers” have begun...

  • In the Footsteps of the Muses: Writing for Archaeogaming Educational Modules (AEM) (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily McElroy.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Video games are no longer silly pastimes where you press “B” to jump. As video games have become a larger part of children’s life, so too have video games become a larger part of academia. Video games are now being designed to display academic and historical subjects such as Ancient Rome,...

  • Learning about the Ancient World: Introducing Archaeogaming Education Modules (AEMs) as Classroom Resources (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Paige Brevick.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Humanities education at the grade-school level, particularly that of the ancient past, has frequently been characterized as lacking in new technologies and teaching tools. Additionally, the subject of the ancient world itself can be complex and intimidating for teachers who may be unfamiliar...

  • Medieval Medicine Board Game: Saving Ancient Studies (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Emma Barbacini.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Archaeogaming Team at SASA turns games into the backdrop of history; this project loops full circle, turning history into a game. Born as support material to an AEM that explores the history of medieval medicine, this game is meant to familiarize the players with relevant vocabulary and...

  • The Museumification of Video Game Artifact Collecting: The Development of Experiences in Archaeological Video Games from Trophy Taking to Decolonizing and Educating (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Wai.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Collecting objects forms a core game mechanic. Traditionally, critiques have focused on the trivialization of cultural objects. However, I argue that such collections have grown in their educational and informative ability for players. Furthermore, such games are reflexive, informing the...

  • New Media, Old Stories: Democratizing Archaeology with Open Source Methods in Virtual Heritage Management at Northern Rio Grande Pueblos (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Chester Liwosz. Arthur Cruz.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Covering 50 square miles of tablelands in northern New Mexico, Mesa Prieta (Black Mesa, Mesa Canoa) is an exceptional petroglyph landscape with remarkable historical and cultural significance. As a core part of its mission, the nonprofit Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project’s (MP3) has long partnered...

  • A Serious Game: Teaching Key Archaeological Lessons with Augmented and Virtual Reality (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Cook. Grace Conrad. Joseph Chambers.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While archaeologists are quite good at communicating to each other through various professional outlets, we have not been particularly good at conveying our core findings and lessons for wider audiences. This seems particularly true in the Midwest United States. While there are likely many...

  • Welcome to Goblin Town: Using Role-Playing Games for Education and Science Communication (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Cipolla. Daryl Basarte. Michael Zimmerman. Anna Coon. Bryanda Owen.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The emergent field of archaeogaming explores how people interact with gaming worlds. In this poster, we take a look at a subset of gaming, role-playing games (RPGs), and their potential for teaching archaeological concepts and critical thinking. We present three case studies of RPGs with...

  • “You discover 1d4 ancient relic(s)”: Archaeological Outreach through Tabletop Roleplaying Games (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David S. Anderson.

    This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From the very origins of tabletop roleplaying games, creators like Gary Gygax turned to scholarship of the ancient world as a wellspring for fantasy worldbuilding, in-game quests, and tradition-rich non-player characters or legendary creatures. Through this lens, gamers took an active role in...