Seascapes of the Unreal: Using Agent-Based Modeling to Examine Traditional Coast Salish Maritime Mobility

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Negotiating Watery Worlds: Impacts and Implications of the Use of Watercraft in Small-Scale Societies" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Nontraditional tools and mediums can provide unique methodological and interpretive opportunities for archaeologists. In this case, the Unreal Engine (UE), which is typically used for games and media, has provided a powerful tool for non-programmers to engage with 3D visualization and programming as never before. UE has a low cost of entry for researchers as it is free to download and has user-friendly “blueprint” tools that are visual and easily extendable. Traditional maritime mobility in the Salish Sea is examined using an agent-based model developed in blueprints. This simulation integrates lidar and bathymetric data from a GIS to assess travel distance costs between modeled Coast Salish village sites on shore and riverine contexts. The integration of these types of tools, traditionally used for entertainment, can increase the accessibility of modeling approaches to researchers, be expanded to digital storytelling, and can have wide applications beyond maritime archaeology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Negotiating Watery Worlds: Impacts and Implications of the Use of Watercraft in Small-Scale Societies   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36023.0