Fishponds, Rock Art, and iPads: Documenting Native Hawaiian Heritage using Accessible 3D Technology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Military Cultural Resources Management" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

As a Department of Defense Legacy Resource Management Program project, the Virtual Curation Laboratory (VCL) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) explored different techniques for three-dimensional (3-D) documentation of cultural heritage on the island of O’ahu in March 2024, with the principle goal of creating a 3-D virtual public tour of heritage sites or locations that are difficult to access. This poster reviews the efforts by the VCL under the direction of VCU Anthropology faculty Dr. Bernard K. Means and two then-senior VCU Anthropology students, Anna Carter and Gabby Carter. We focus here on our 3-D documentation efforts at the Loko I’a Pāʻaiau Fishpond, various locations in Makua Valley, at the Kukaniloko Birthstones site, and artifact scanning for the U.S. Garrison-Hawai’i O’ahu Army Cultural Resources Program. The primary emphasis of the VCL team was to demonstrate the effectiveness of technology readily available to any individual and at a relatively economical cost, especially compared to more sophisticated and expensive equipment that requires specialized training.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Military Cultural Resources Management   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51433