Archaeological Futures through a Virtual Past

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Archaeological Futures through a Virtual Past" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This session illustrates the usefulness of 3D and immersive archaeological storytelling strategies for public engagement, collaborative research, and experiential education. Archaeologists are increasingly relying on Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), 3D modeling, video game design, and photogrammetry to preserve and dynamically visualize archaeological contexts, data, and narratives. Through diverse strategies of sensorial engagement, inaccessible contexts and objects become globally available on personal devices or public web-based experiences. This poster session provides innovative examples of the ways in which archaeologists deploy virtual methods to create opportunities for accessible exploration and intimate engagement with material culture and historical landscapes. Session participants will demonstrate the future of archaeological methods through play and experimentation within virtual pasts.

Other Keywords
Historic • digital archaeology • Cultural Heritage and Preservation • Digital Archaeology: Photogrammetry • bioarchaeology • Conservation • Historical Archaeology • Research • Collections • Museums

Geographic Keywords
Republic of Peru (Country) • Republic of Panama (Country) • Republic of Colombia (Country) • Netherlands Antilles (Country) • Aruba (Country) • Republic of Ecuador (Country) • Republic of Kenya (Country) • United Republic of Tanzania (Country) • Republic of Chile (Country) • Republic of Uganda (Country)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-7 of 7)

  • Documents (7)
Documents
  • 3D Skeletal Digitization as a Tool for Collaborative Artistic Commemoration (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andreana Cunningham.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Futures through a Virtual Past" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Facial approximation is a salient tool in archaeology that aims to estimate the likeness of past peoples based on historic, anatomical, and artistic evidence. This project used an iterative and community-oriented approach to 2D manual facial approximation for three decedents buried at Rupert’s Valley Burial Ground in St. Helena. Rupert’s...

  • Augmented Curiosities: Virtual Play in African Pasts and Futures (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Craig Stevens.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Futures through a Virtual Past" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Technologies inspire the creation of new subjectivities - changing our points of perspective and augmenting the ways in which we perceive. Through our ever-expanding applications of innovation, humans recontextualize realities. We use the tools of the present to formulate our visions of the future and our understandings of the past. Along...

  • Digital Palimpsest of Cultural Heritage: A Virtual Experience of the San Ignacio Church in Bogotá, Colombia (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Julie Wesp. Justin Johnson. Hope Eisenstein. Santiago Tobón Grajales S.J.. Felipe Gaitán Ammann.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Futures through a Virtual Past" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This interdisciplinary project uses photogrammetry and video game development software to capture and digitally recreate the interior of the San Ignacio church in Bogotá, Colombia. Established in 1610, this church served as the mother church for the Society of Jesus in Nueva Granada and continues to be one of the most spectacular examples of...

  • Osteogrammetry: The Efficacy of SfM Photogrammetry for Documenting Human Skeletal Remains (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexander Vail. Erin Waxenbaum.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Futures through a Virtual Past" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research refines methods of digitally documenting human remains from archaeological contexts using structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry and confirms the accuracy of employing this method for metric and nonmetric data collection. SfM photogrammetry offers a low-cost and accessible way to create accurate 3D digital models of...

  • Preserving the Maritime Cultural Heritage: Digital Recording Applications on the Nineteenth-Century Schooner Equator (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Raul Palomino Berrocal. Andrew Billingsley. Piotr Bojakowski. Katie Custer Bojakowski.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Futures through a Virtual Past" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The schooner Equator was originally built in 1888 in California by the renowned shipwright Matthew Turner and sailed in the South Pacific by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson. After the southern journeys, the ship went through multiple redesigns for different purposes in the west American coast. These events made the ship a unique...

  • Skills For Culture: A Methodology for Community-Oriented Digital Archaeology Projects (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Malkia Okech.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Futures through a Virtual Past" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. African Digital Heritage (ADH) is a Nairobi-based nonprofit organization working to encourage a more critical, holistic, and knowledge-based approach to digital solutions within African heritage. Through this, we hope to cement the place of African culture in an era of rapidly changing technologies and endless frontiers. Our focus areas are...

  • Virtual Anthropology in Fieldwork, Conservation, and Education in Mexico: Lessons Learned, Challenges, and Future Perspectives (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Miguel Contreras-Sieck. María Margarita del Olmo Calzada. Perla del Carmen Ruíz Albarrán. Maria Nieves-Colón.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Futures through a Virtual Past" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The development of novel digital technologies has consistently expanded the capacities to explore and approach existing anthropological and archaeological research questions. Virtual Anthropology stands as a relatively new interdisciplinary approach that further expands our resolution to study ancient and recent human remains, cultural...