Teaching with Immersive Virtual Archaeology

Brian M. Slator, Jeffrey T. Clark, James Landrum III, Aaron Bergstrom, Justin Hawley, Eunice Johnston, and Shawn Fisher

Departments of Computer Science, Sociology/Anthropology, English

North Dakota State UniversityFargo, ND 58105

Contact: slator@cs.ndsu.edu

Virtual Archaeologist

a) exploration of a spatially oriented, authentic virtual world;

b) practical, field-based decision making; c) critical thinking for scientific problem solving;d) and time-travel

An immersive multi-user 3D virtual environment that faithfully reproduces an archeological site, Fort Berthold/Like-A-Fishhook

Village (FB/LF), which supports:

Immersive Virtual Environments

• Simulated environment using LambdaMOO (enCore version 3.0, UT Dallas, Haynes & Holmevik)

• Multiple interface(s) to the SAME simulation

• Hosted on the internet, browser accessible

• Multi-user, embedded objects, spatial navigation

• Implemented support for “story points” (for embedded historical and/or fictional narrative)

•Support humanities student writing project

Like-A-Fishhook Time Line

1839

1845

1862

1950

1890

2001

1930

Like-A-Fishhook MOO

Like-A-Fishhook MOO

Like-A-Fishhook MOO

http://lions.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu:4445/

Playing the Archaeology Game

1. Premise: site about to be “lost”2. Students given “authentic” tools,

resources, and Goals3. Role-based learning of procedure

- to “act like” and “think like” an archaeologist

Time-Travel

1954 Excavation 1851 Village

Visualizing archaeology in virtual contexts

Project Resources

• archaeological reports• historical documents• field notes• archaeological artifacts• maps• photographs• audio recordings• video/film

State Historical Society of North Dakotahttp://www.state.nd.us/hist/

Project ResourcesExcavation Photos

Excavators removing soil to reveal structure, remains and artifacts.

Project ResourcesAerial Photos

Project Resources1870 site photos

Arikara ceremonial lodge.

Project ResourcesExcavation Maps

3D Models/Renderings

3D Models/Renderings

3D Models/Renderings

Project Resources3D Laser Scanning of Archaeological Artifacts

•DANA is intended to be a cross-platform information retrieval system for web-based multimedia utilized in anthropological research.

•Ultimately, the goal of the DANA project is to create a network of distributed, federated databases containing research quality digitized 3D models, photographs, and video of archaeological and cultural data.

•To the user seeking to access a broad variety of data, the client application will seem as though it is a user-friendly interface to a single online database. In actually, the user will be conducting searchers across a wide variety of databases located across the globe.

Project Co-PI’s:• Dr. Jeffrey T. Clark• Dr. Brian Slator• Dr. William Perrizo

http://atl.ndsu.edu/archive/

Digital Archive Network For Anthropology

• Though further research is required to implement the distributed, federated network aspects of DANA, the database browsing application currently supports servlet search capabilities for Postgress, mySQL, and Oracle databases.

• DANA currently only displays VRML 97 and HotMedia 3D models, though the addition of 3D file formats supported by the NCSA Java3D Portfolio is expected soon.

Technology Used:

• Java3D• Java JDK 1.3• Java Web Start• Java Servlets• JDBC• NCSA Java3D Portfolio• IBM’s HotMedia Classes

DANA Fact Sheet

WWWIC

http://www.ndsu.edu/wwwic/

World Wide WebInstructional Committee

Other WWWIC Projects

•Geology Explorer

•Virtual Cell

•Programming Land

•Blackwood

•Dollar Bay

• main page http://vcell.ndsu.edu/fishhook/

• slideshows http://vcell.ndsu.edu/fishhook/demonstration.html/

• reference links: http://vcell.ndsu.edu/fishhook/lfvfb-links.html

• bibliography: http://vcell.ndsu.edu/fishhook/biblio.html

Fishhook Project Website