Overview of a Photogrammetry / Map-Stories Approach to Heritage Management on Barbuda

Summary

This is an abstract from the "At the Frontier of Big Climate, Disaster Capitalism, and Endangered Cultural Heritage in Barbuda, Lesser Antilles" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeological sites on the island of Barbuda are increasingly under threat from natural disasters and human practices. Photogrammetry is a promising tool to preserve detailed spatial data of threatened sites for future study and present sites to both researchers and the public using technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) that offer a more intuitive and embodied experience than traditional media. During the 2023 field season, photogrammetric models of 10 sites on Barbuda were created. Seven of these sites are of the colonial era and include military fortifications, administrative buildings, and industrial sites, two are from the Archaic time period and consist of an opportunistic stratigraphic excavation of the Strombus Line (a shellfish midden) and a petroglyph in a cave, and one is modern and consists of a corrugated metal shelter on a wharf. These models were then incorporated into web-based AR and VR exhibits, and one was 3D printed. This presentation reports on the process and outcomes of these modeling projects, including technical obstacles, broader impacts, potential uses, limitations, and ethical considerations, as well as how this project highlights the need to apply the historical approach to digitally mediated archaeology, as advocated by Richards-Rissetto and Lindaut.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• At the Frontier of Big Climate, Disaster Capitalism, and Endangered Cultural Heritage in Barbuda, Lesser Antilles   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39269.0