[Discussion] analysis of the archaeological and cultural landscape

[sule tarakcioglu]

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Beyond GIS: Mindscapes, VR and Cultural Landscapes

web: www.itabc.cnr.it/VHLab 
<http://www.h-net.org/announce/www.itabc.cnr.it/VHLab>

The landscape is a dynamic context of different transformations 
intelligible through the time: cultural, historic, political, social, 
geomorphologic, geographic, anthropological.

The study and analysis of the archaeological and cultural landscape 
involve a multidisciplinary approach in order to reconstruct cultures, 
paleo-environments, mental maps (mindscapes), geomorphology, and 
settlements in diachronic way. Therefore the diachronic and dynamic 
reconstruction of the landscape needs to implement different methods and 
advanced digital technologies: GIS (Geographical Information Systrem), 
remote sensing, virtual reality, predictive modelling, and multimedia 
applications.

The main goal of the workshop is to start a multidisciplinary discussion 
of the digital methods of analysis and 3D representation for the 
reconstruction of the cultural and archaeological landscapes, from both 
epistemological and technological perspectives. The complexity of these 
kinds of contexts tests the most advanced digital technologies in the 
effort to understand cultural identities, issues and differences through 
time. The integrated use of GIS, remote sensing, virtual reality and 
multimedia applications is a fundamental approach for understanding the 
past and the present and, in the case of this workshop, for interpreting 
cognitive models of the landscape.

The interpretation or reconstruction of previous cognition is not a 
simple process. Knowledge is cognitively processed information, and is 
both represented and the basis of action. Cognitive archaeology, the 
study of past ways of thought as inferred from material remains, still 
presents so many challenges to the practitioner that it seems if not a 
novel, at any rate, an uncertain endeavour.

One goal is to show that people had preferences independent of economic 
necessity. A second goal is to demonstrate how ideals may be altered or 
transformed by reality into an amalgam. Settlements and housing location 
are the results of a series of personal and cultural decisions. The 
ideal pattern of settlement, in the mind of the ancient people, may be 
tempered, adjusted and transformed by topographic reality. These ideal 
forms are grounded in such economic realities as trade and transport, or 
established upon such cultural realities as heritage, aesthetic norms, 
or social and religious rules. As archaeologists, one of our ultimate 
goals is to extract the cultural ideals from the complicated reality in 
the complex patterns of prehistoric material remains. The interpretation 
and the knowledge of archaeological landscape is the result of numerous 
compromises between ideal and real.

Fundamental to archaeology is the interpretation of human behaviour over 
space and time. Increasingly, spatial aspects of past human activity 
have been discussed through the theories and methodologies that 
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have brought to the subject. GIS is 
typically used to provide a series of hypothetical scenarios of, and 
alternative perspectives on, the spatial inter-relationships that exist 
between people and their environments.

Archaeological research has therefore emphasised the need for an 
integration of anthropological, cultural and social values within 
ecological variables. Especially the agency debate has re-emphasised the 
importance of human volition within the creation of an archaeological 
landscape. Human action is influenced by how groups perceive their 
worlds and, indirectly and only in part, structured by the accommodation 
of affordances created by the dynamic interplay between humans and their 
animate and inanimate surroundings. But human landscapes are really 
generated through unique human action and interpretation, using both 
environmental characteristics and socio-cultural understandings. Human 
social and material interaction is fuelled by habitus and agency. Human 
agency, representing unique viewpoints based on material culture and 
landscape (structure) and unique history (narrative), is crucial for 
human choice and action. It is therefore argued that it is the effects 
of human agency that structure landscapes and reveal how dynamic 
surroundings are interrogated and interpreted.

Topics

   * Remote Sensed Archaeological data and 3D visualization;
   * 3D GIS in archaeology: tools and software;
   * Cybernetics and cultural landscapes
   * Virtual museums and territory
   * Digital Ecosystems
   * Artscapes, taskscapes, mindscapes
   * Virtual Reality Systems and Visual Geographic Information;
   * 3D databases in Archaeology;
   * VR devices for the advanced visualization of spatial data;
   * Virtual Reconstructions of Archaeological Landscapes;
   * Multilayered analyses of Spatial Data;
   * DGPS and archaeological surveys for monitoring and reconstructing
   * 3D archaeological landscapes;
   * 3D GIS and Geophysics;
   * 3D Web Interfaces for Visualizing GIS archaeological data;
   * 3D Virtual Libraries of Georeferenced Cultural Data;
   * Archaeological Spatial Analyses and 3D Visualization;
   * Open Gl Technologies in Archaeological VR GIS;
   * Epistemology of VR GIS in Archaeology;
   * VR GIS, Communication and Cultural Tourism.

    Maurizio Forte, CNR-ITABC, Rome, Italy
or
Caverlee Cary
GIS Center, 412 Wurster Hall
UC Berkeley, Berkeley CA
Phone: (510) 642-8737

Email: maurizio.forte@itabc.cnr.it <mailto:maurizio.forte@itabc.cnr.it>
Visit the website at 
http://www.ecai.org/Activities/Congress2004/schedule.html#vr