Thinking through the tool: collaborative archaeological bodywork in immersive virtual reality

Thanks to currently available very high-resolution three-dimensional (3D) models via photogrammetric techniques as a primary method of archaeological documentation, constructing immersive, high-fidelity simulacra is imminently possible. This paper considers how the scale at which the human body interacts with immersive digital models is especially important for understanding the affordances and ergonomics of past things and places. The implications of this isometry between archaeological objects of analysis and emerging capabilities to interact with them through digital surrogates in the present are manifold. By enabling interaction with objects and contexts in immersive virtual space, such observational experiences create in silico engagements that are repeatable, distributable, and collaborative. In particular, it is the collaborative capacity of this technology that this paper explores using online immersive virtual reality (iVR). Collaborative online iVR is used in this research as a key instrument for enhancing understanding and reinterpreting the digital records of two archaeological sites under excavation in Peru. The case studies analyzed show a variety of cultural, geographic, and temporal contexts in the Andean region, which illustrates the broad potential of iVR for archaeological hermeneutics. Through iVR frameworks, the authors engage with embodied reconsiderations of Catholic ritual spaces within a planned colonial town in the southern Peruvian highlands and the pre-Columbian site of Huaca Colorada on the north coast. Synchronous scalar experiences that privilege the affordances of architectural space within digital models create opportunities for embodied experience and collaborative dialogue. A fundamental argument is the capacity to digitally inhabit these places and manipulate materials holds subtle as well as profound epistemological and hermeneutic implications for archaeological knowledge construction

2.3 Beyond the Basemap: Multiscalar Survey through Aerial Photogrammetry in the Andes

The revolutionary capabilities of digital aerial photogrammetry open new avenues for archaeological research design, cultural heritage management, and spatial visualization and analysis. The low cost and high speed of aerial photogrammetry democratize and accelerate both the production and distribution of high-resolution digital 2D and 3D spatial representations of archaeological features, sites, and landscapes. With cultural patrimony disappearing at alarming rates around the world, the adoption of these techniques is an urgent priority. We review our methods and experiences using 3D photogrammetric registry at several scales in the diverse environmental conditions of the Andean region, using an array of inexpensive aerial imagery capture platforms, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones), meteorological balloons, and poles. The accuracy and resolution of the resulting products enable photogrammetric representations (e.g., orthomosaics, 3D solids, digital elevation models) to serve as the primary spatial references for survey and excavations. The methodological implications of these rapid advances have yet to be fully integrated into most archaeological research designs. Rather than using photogrammetry as a “value-added” technique appended to traditional survey or excavation, we outline workflows for rapid 3D photogrammetric documentation combined with mobile GIS. In sum, these transformative technologies and techniques enable the curation and broad dissemination of digital repositories of endangered cultural heritage, as well as dramatically richer spatial representations for an array of analytical ends in archaeological research.https://dc.uwm.edu/arthist_mobilizingthepast/1011/thumbnail.jp

On-Site Recording of Excavation Data Using Mobile GIS

Archaeologists have embraced new technologies in many aspects of research, but reliance on paperbased recording has impeded development of excavation recording methods. The digital recording of spatial provenience for artifacts and features, together with complex attributes during excavation, while not problem-free, provides a streamlined recording process. This article describes a digital interface that links precise spatial provenience with digital forms and geo-referenced photographs during excavation at a colonial site in highland Peru. A customized version of ESRI ArcPad provides the means to create and to explore spatial and attribute data in the field and laboratory as GIS data, which in turn can be integrated with ArcGIS for post-field visualization and analysi

Counter-Mapping Maroon Cartographies : GIS and Anticolonial Modeling in St. Croix

Formal spatial modeling and analytical approaches to maroon settlement, fugitivity, and warfare in the colonial-era Caribbean have tended to mine historical cartographic sources instrumentally to analyze the distributions and simulate processes driving marronage in St. Croix (Dunnavant 2021b; Ejstrud 2008; Norton and Espenshade, 2007). Through close-in analysis, we compare two Danish maps of St. Croix produced in 1750 and 1799 in relation to modern cartographic sources, to explore how cartographic forms and cartesian conventions (attempt to) elide blind spots in the colonial gaze. By modeling possible subject-oriented maroon movement on georeferenced colonial maps and contemporary LiDAR, we demonstrate how GIS can recover anti-colonial agency. Additionally, the practice of georeferencing itself is a critical site of analysis, revealing distortions suggestive of social and environmental conditions that limited colonial cartographers’ ability to map certain wilderness and contested landscapes that lay outside of their control

Late pre-Hispanic fog oasis settlements and long-term human occupation on the Peruvian central coast from satellite imagery.

Fog oases ( ) present pockets of verdant vegetation within the arid coastal desert of Andean South America and archaeological excavation within some of the oases has revealed a long history of human exploitation of these landscapes. Yet lomas settlements are under-represented in archaeological datasets due to their tendency to be located in remote inter-valley areas. Here, the authors employ satellite imagery survey to map the locations of anthropogenic surface features along the central Peruvian coast. They observe two categories of archaeological features, large corrals and clustered structures, and document a concentration of settlement features within lomas landscapes that suggests a pre-Hispanic preference for both short- and long-term occupation of these verdant oases