Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Multisensory Experiences In Archaeological Landscapes—Sound, Vision, And Movement In Gis And Virtual Reality, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Kristy Primeau,, David E. E. Witt, Graham Goodwin

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archaeologists are employing a variety of digital tools to develop new methodological frameworks that combine computational and experiential approaches which is leading to new multisensory research. In this article, we explore vision, sound, and movement at the ancient Maya city of Copan from a multisensory and multiscalar perspective bridging concepts and approaches from different archaeological paradigms. Our methods and interpretations employ theory-inspired variables from proxemics and semiotics to develop a methodological framework that combines computation with sensory perception. Using GIS, 3D, and acoustic tools we create multisensory experiences in VR with spatial sound using an immersive headset (Oculus Rift) and …

Mapping Renewal: How An Unexpected Interdisciplinary Collaboration Transformed A Digital Humanities Project, Elise Tanner, Geoffrey Joseph

Digital Initiatives Symposium

Funded by a National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Foundations Grant, the UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture’s “Mapping Renewal” pilot project focused on creating access to and providing spatial context to archival materials related to racial segregation and urban renewal in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, from 1954-1989. An unplanned interdisciplinary collaboration with the UA Little Rock Arkansas Economic Development Institute (AEDI) has proven to be an invaluable partnership. One team member from each department will demonstrate the Mapping Renewal website and discuss how the collaborative process has changed and shaped …

Politics Vs. The Environment: The Spatial Distributions Of Mississippian Mound Centers In Tampa Bay, Adam J. Sax

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Safety Harbor culture that resided in West-Central Florida during the Mississippian period (~1000-1500 CE) was distant from the Mississippian heartland but built similar platform mound complexes and exhibited social hierarchies despite practicing an estuarine lifestyle that likely did not rely on extensive agriculture. To determine whether this coastal culture exhibited similar spatial patterns of platform mound centers to traditional inland cultures, GIS spatial analyses including distance matrices, density analyses, and least cost analyses (LCA) were performed within the Safety Harbor geographical nexus of Tampa Bay. The results were able to detect temporal changes in settlement patterns and estimate the …

Mapping The Light Fantastic At Newgrange, Frank Prendergast, Clare Tuffy, John Lalor, Claire Breen, Sinéad Gargan

Articles

THE WORLD HERITAGE PROPERTY of Brú na Bóinne attracts thousands of visitors from Ireland and around the globe, many drawn by the remarkable winter solstice phenomenon, when the rising sun’s rays illuminate the burial chamber. During 2020 it became clear that public health measures to combat the global pandemic were going to preclude visitor access to the chamber of the Great Mound of Newgrange, including during the annual winter solstice celebrations. When the government agencies OPW and NMS discussed how to manage Newgrange and the solstice during the restrictions, Clare Tuffy, Manager of Visitor Services at Brú na Bóinne, suggested …

Mapping In The Humanities: Gis Lessons For Poets, Historians, And Scientists, Emily W. Fairey

Open Educational Resources

User-friendly Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is the common thread of this collection of presentations, and activities with full lesson plans. The first section of the site contains an overview of cartography, the art of creating maps, and then looks at historical mapping platforms like Hypercities and Donald Rumsey Historical Mapping Project. In the next section Google Earth Desktop Pro is introduced, with lessons and activities on the basics of GE such as pins, paths, and kml files, as well as a more complex activity on "georeferencing" an historic map over Google Earth imagery. The final section deals with ARCGIS Online …

Modeling Sound In Ancient Maya Cities: Moving Towards A Synesthetic Experience Using Gis & 3d Simulation, Graham Goodwin

Anthropology Department: Theses

Digital technologies enable modeling of the potential role of sound in past environments. While digital approaches have limitations in objectively rendering reality, they provide an expanded platform that potentially increases our understanding of experience in the past and enhances the investigation of ancient landscapes. Digital technologies enable new experiences in ways that are multi-sensual and move us closer toward reconstructing holistic views of past landscapes. Archaeologists have successfully employed 2D and 3D tools to measure vision and movement within cityscapes. However, built environments are often designed to invoke synesthetic experiences that also include sound and other senses. Geographic Information Systems …

Using Virtual Reality And Photogrammetry To Enrich 3d Object Identity, Cole Juckette, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Hector Eluid Guerra Aldana, Norman Martinez

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The creation of digital 3D models for cultural heritage is commonplace. With the advent of efficient and cost effective technologies archaeologists are making a plethora of digital assets. This paper evaluates the identity of 3D digital assets and explores how to enhance or expand that identity by integrating photogrammetric models into VR. We propose that when a digital object acquires spatial context from its virtual surroundings, it gains an identity in relation to that virtual space, the same way that embedding the object with metadata gives it a specific identity through its relationship to other information. We explore this concept …

The Spatial Ordering Of Nabataea: An Integrated Analysis Of The Geography, Architecture, And Morphology Of Nabataean Petra, Christopher Clifton Angel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Nabataean city of Petra is well known for its sandstone architecture and rock-hewn funerary landscape. Over the last few decades, numerous studies examined their history, culture, art, and architecture. The few studies that assessed the urban space of Petra focused on the functional properties of individual architectural forms and their nominal placement within the overall landscape. This study focused on the spatial configurations of architecture as relational to the dynamics of Nabataean politics and ritual where shifts in social order manifested similar shifts in spatial order which in turn produced and reproduced forms of social order. The production of …

Past Meets Future: Combining Gis, 3d Technologies, And Legacy Data To Reanalyze Ceramics At Copan, Honduras, Stephanie Sterling, Heather Richards-Rissetto, René Viel

UCARE Research Products

The archaeological site of Copán—a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Honduras—was a primary center for cultural and economic exchange in the Maya world from the fifth to ninth centuries. Our research investigates the sociopolitical climate of the city immediately preceding this collapse. This poster presents the results of a pilot study intended to evaluate the potential of using a combination of digital technologies and legacy data to reanalyze a subset of diagnostic ceramics from select sites outside of Copan’s urban core. Our methods involved:

(1) Applying photogrammetry to generate 3D models for approximately 30 potentially temporally-diagnostic ceramic types

(2) Digitizing, …

Les Rues Des Tableaux. Géographie Du Marché De L'Art Parisien (1815-1955), Léa Saint-Raymond, Félicie De Maupeou, Julien Cavero

Artl@s Bulletin

Continuation of a first socioeconomic analysis of the "art dealers" in Paris between 1815 and 1955 (Artl@s Bulletin 2, no. 2), this paper presents the results of a spatial study of the Parisian art market at that time. Departing from serial geographical data given by a homogeneous source, the Bottin du commerce, we mapped a 140 years spatial evolution of the "art dealers", using a geocoding system with composite locators. The article exposes the spatial dynamics of this market and studies them in a multi-scalar way, making the connection between the global evolution of the Parisian economy and …

Predictive Modeling In Western Louisiana: Prehistoric And Historic Settlement In The Kisatchie National Forest, Erik Nicholas Johanson

Masters Theses

This thesis is an effort to provide the US Forest Service with a tool to effectively and efficiently protect and manage the cultural resource heritage of the Kisatchie National Forest. The development and subsequent evaluation of modeling efforts are vital to the archaeology of the region. There are two goals of this modeling project: to evaluate the active US Forest Service Predictive Model and secondly, if warranted, which it was, to improve upon previous models in the region. To do so 23 environmental variables were analyzed, many of which are inter-related, to develop a new set of probability zones while …

Site Identification, Delineation, And Evaluation Through Quantitative Spatial Analysis : Geostatistical And Gis Methods To Facilitate Archaeological Resource Assessment, James Scott Cardinal

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This thesis presents a brief overview of quantitative spatial analysis in archaeology with a discussion of the theoretical and methodological issues involved, and describes a set of methods for using Geographic Information System (GIS) software and spatial statistics for the assessment of archaeological resources. GIS has become a nearly ubiquitous and indispensable tool in many fields of resource management including archaeology. It is, however, applied by archaeologists most frequently for basic cartographic representations, large-scale regional analyses, or resource management data warehousing. Such applications underutilize the scale-independence of GIS, which is equally potent for intra-project data assessment. This thesis describes a …

Design Of A Comprehensive Geographic Information System For The Administration Of El Camino Real De Los Tejas National Historic Trail, Jeffrey M. Williams

Faculty Publications

Stephen F. Austin State University’s Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture’s (ATCOFA) Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Laboratory were engaged by the National Park Service (NPS) National Trails System-Intermountain Region to provide GIS services supporting the NPS’s development of a Comprehensive Management Plan for El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail (ELTE). The scope of work was completed under an agreement with the Gulf Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit sponsored by the Texas AgriLife Research Program at Texas A&M University. ATCOFA assisted the NPS in the coordination of local landowner and other local stakeholder contacts, conducted archival research …