Open-Source Approaches to Documenting and Sharing Historical Cemeteries

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Recent Directions in Florida’s Historical Archaeology", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The rapid growth of digital and virtual technologies results in a potentially bewildering array of choices regarding the documentation and publication of publicly accessible heritage content. This paper examines tools for digitally documenting and sharing virtual versions of two historical cemeteries in Florida; the African American cemetery in Rosewood, and a White farmstead community's cemetery in the Ocala National Forest. I provide a complete, low-cost, and rapid solution available to students, local historical societies, and other organizations. This begins with using open-source, real-time kinematic (RTK) global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers to record site features with accuracies of 1-2cm. Various open-source software (e.g., Blender, CloudCompare, Meshroom, QGIS) allow for the processing and combination of various data (e.g., field mapping, LiDAR, photogrammetry) into final products that can be freely shared online. These online formats include interactive 2D maps as well as fully immersive, intuitive virtual reality experiences.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Recent Directions in Florida’s Historical Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow