Discovering Archaeology Through Video Games: A Non-Archeologist’s Enlightenment

Summary

Gamers interact with the past, present and future of the archeological world regularly, whether they realize it or not. We can experience the past through tools, clothes and weapons. We embark on virtual quests to recover cultural treasures from fictional peoples and worlds. We can even see all the efforts that archaeologists have made over the years in these games, depicted in the landscapes and characters of our favorite virtual worlds. Indeed, video games and the systems we play them on are likely to be important artifacts by which future archaeologists study us in the centuries to come.  This presentation will, using several popular examples from today’s video games, discuss how a non-archaeologist has acquired a basic understanding of the discipline, and the important role it has played throughout our history, from his own couch.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017   •
• Archaeogamine: A New Frontier in Public Archaeology

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 579