THE VIRTUES OF VIRTUAL ARCHAEOLOGY

THEVIRTUESOF virtual archaeology

The ability to produce precise, 3-D digital replicas of archaeological items and display them on the Web could have a tremendous impact on the science.

By Michael Bawaya

A 3-D recreation of a horned toad effigy vessel is virtually rotated in this series of images. This virtual vessel was created from a 3-D scan of the genuine vessel. The data from the scan was then fed into a computer-aided geometric design program, which precisely reproduced the shape and dimensions of the vessel. While the virtual vessel is part of the archaeology exhibit at Arizona State University, the genuine article, due to NAGPRA, has been repatriated.

Jeffrey Clark will tell you that constructing a 19thcentury Plains Indian village ain’t what it used to be. He and his colleagues had no need for countless wooden poles or tons of thatch. What they used instead was an expensive 3-D laser scanner, an intimate knowledge of the village, and a Web site on which to place it.

In the mid-1800s, Like-A-Fishhook village was located north of the confluence of the Missouri and Knife rivers in central North Dakota. Clark’s virtual rendition of the village, replete with a historically accurate earth lodge, manipulatable 3-D artifacts, and moving inhabitants can soon be found at the Heritage Interpretive Center, which is run by the North Dakota Historical Society.

Like-A-Fishhook is an example of virtual archaeology, and Clark, who directs the Archaeology Technologies Laboratory at North Dakota State University, is one of its few practitioners in the United States. Be that as it may, virtual technology could have a tremendous impact on American archaeology. This technology was introduced to archaeology in the 1990s, when researchers designed pilot projects and secured grants to study methods for developing 3-D models and on-line databases of cultural artifacts. These researchers saw the benefits of digitally reproducing and manipulating images of everything from pottery to arrowheads to human skulls.

No one thinks studying virtual artifacts and features will ever preclude studying the genuine articles. A researcher can’t, for example, perform a chemical analysis of a virtual artifact, or radiocarbon-date it. Still, virtual archaeology offers numerous benefits. Ancient artifacts are often very fragile and they can deteriorate when handled by researchers. Manipulatable, 3-D replicas not only eliminate the problem of deterioration, they can also provide precise models. Museum curators could therefore open their virtual collections to researchers without literally opening their collections, thereby eliminating wear and tear. Virtual collections could also make some aspects of research much easier for archaeologists and other scientists.

“When you go out and dig up a bone and you think it’s from a particular species, you need to write down very carefully all the measurements you want to make and send it to the museum where the type specimen is stored, then you have to wait for them to get the time to do comparisons and measurements,” says Ken McGwire, an associate professor at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, who last year completed a three-year project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop methods for creating and analyzing digital models of paleontological specimens. “Even then, there are no guarantees that (the other museum) will measure things the same way you did. But if you have a type specimen that was scanned completely accurately just once, then you can compare your own specimen to that.

“I’m not going to say that this replaces every application of seeing things in the real world, but for a large number of tasks, it will go a long way toward making things more efficient.”

In some cases, a virtual examination of artifacts or features could preclude the need to actually see them. This could be

This image, which is taken from a computer screen, shows an early phase of the virtual 3-D reconstruction of an earthlodge once located at the Like-A-Fishhook village. The earthlodge is an interactive museum exhibit produced by the Archaeology Technologies Laboratory at North Dakota State University. The software used to produce this image is also used to create 3-D special effects in movies and video games.

extremely convenient, as seeing these items might require anything from driving across town to flying to Central America.

Virtual collections could also help alleviate the curation crisis confronting archaeology. Government guidelines regulating excavation work—and requiring artifacts to be preserved and made accessible for public use—have created vast reserves of valuable artifacts, to be sure, but also a staggering amount of redundancy. Some museums, especially those affiliated with universities and local historical societies, which were not built with the idea of storing large collections, now limit the new collections they’ll accept because they lack the space and manpower to properly house and curate them. Some museums are returning collections to the agencies that deposited them, or writing up agreements that specify who has responsibility for the collections should the curation expense become prohibitive. According to a National Park Service report, curation costs can run as high as $1,500 per cubic foot.

ONE-STOP VIRTUAL SHOPS

A few researchers endeavor to develop centralized networks that would serve as one-stop shops by offering the virtual, manipulatable collections of any number of participating museums. Such networks could offer a variety of thematic databases, such as Southwestern pottery or Clovis points. McGwire and his colleague, Stephanie Livingston, spent four years exploring the feasibility of a comprehensive prototype network of digital archives, accessible from a central source using one universally compatible search engine. They realized that bandwidth poses a major problem. The more precise the scanned image, the larger the digital file, the longer the transmission time to the end-user. In fact, an end-user with a slow Internet connection may find accessing such images to be impractical.

There is also the matter of who the end-user is. A network geared to researchers will require far more precise images and sophisticated manipulation capabilities than one geared to the general public. And even then, McGwire remarks, “One has to be cautious about the assumed precision of what’s coming out the other end.” Such a network would ideally be geared to both, but that also makes it more complicated to design.

The Digital Archive Network for Anthropology and World Heritage is already up and running. This network, coordinated by Jeff Clark’s Archaeology Technologies Laboratory at North Dakota State University in Fargo, links data from various collections around the world, including artifacts from Columbia and Minnesota State universities. Some images are 3-D and manipulatable, and the content as a whole is fairly limited. But Clark thinks more museums and universities will become involved as virtual archaeology gains popularity.

“Many (institutions) have been reluctant to participate because they want to feel like they’re getting recognition for what they’ve developed,” says Clark, who was surprised at some of the resistance he encountered. His network is now using icons to designate the sources of the images, so Clark hopes that will remedy the problem. He and his colleagues have been spending a fair amount of

These images display the completed 3-D reconstruction of the earthlodge. The interactive exhibit allows people to explore the villages, lodges, and forts of the time, much in the same manner that modern video game consoles allow users to participate in fictional 3-D worlds.

time making presentations and explaining how such collaboration can benefit researchers and students. Assuming information can be shared in a way that protects proprietary data, he thinks most institutions eventually will come around. Clark, who also hopes to collaborate with institutions in Europe, notes that “the Europeans are much farther along in this area than we are.”

McGwire says museums also have concerns about the quality of the representation, but he thinks that can be remedied: rather than hands-off outsourcing, the museums would need to make a commitment to oversee the scanning and archiving work. Museums could share the cost of putting collections on-line, as well as the cost of quality control, says Arleyn Simon. She is the curator of a virtual archaeology exhibit at the Archaeological Research Institute at Arizona State University in Tempe. Simon also believes that government agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, which fund the majority of archaeology projects in the United States, could encourage development of these networks by requiring that a percentage of a project’s budget be used to establish a digital archive of the collection derived from that project and that the various collections be accessible through a single network. This is often done in Britain. UTILIZING A NEW, EXPENSIVE TECHNOLOGY

As promising as virtual archaeology is, there are obvious reasons why the technology is not yet widely implemented. As is often the case, gee-whiz technology comes at a gee-whiz price. The hardware and software necessary to scan artifacts still can cost well over $100,000, depending on whether the software is stock or custom. That doesn’t include the skilled labor necessary to operate the system. Producing correct scans, even in the case where the scanner costs $40,000, is a complicated task. Scanning an object can average a half-hour to several hours, depending on its complexity. Accurate color is difficult to reproduce with a laser scanner. The resolution of the images isn’t always as sharp as researchers would like. “Most of these scanners aren’t made for what we do,” Clark says. Archiving the images in a database and making that database accessible on-line is another expense, possibly as much as $150,000 when you factor in technology and

These two images are interactive 3-D representations of an elk antler attachment to a headdress worn by the Hidatsas, a Plains’s tribe, while performing a dance. The bottom image, called a wireframe, gives the observer a very accurate impression of the geometry of the object. The top image is a representation of the same object that includes its color. labor. Researchers have yet to find, or create, the perfect software system that provides a truly user-friendly interface for inputting data, a seamless method for creating and networking databases, and foolproof techniques for measuring and manipulating images.

“The computer power is just not there for this stuff,” says Jim Holmlund, referring to what it would take for a museum to mount a virtual, interactive display of its collections. “It’s really not practical yet on a large scale.” Holmlund, of Geo-Map Inc. in Tucson, Arizona, has been doing virtual site mapping and 3-D artifact scanning for clients—including the Arizona State Museum at the University of Arizona and several national parks—for about three years. He predicts that the situation could change in five years due to advances in computing power.

These expenses can indeed be prohibitive for nonprofit educational institutions. So how can an institution that wants to utilize this new technology afford to both obtain and maintain it? Some museums may decide to charge user fees for accessing collections, but that poses the challenge of establishing a system for payment. The institutions could also sell the technology they’ve developed or provide consulting services about this technology to other interested parties—as a way of financing their own virtual archaeology projects. Both the Desert Research Institute and Arizona State’s Archaeological Research Institute are considering commercializing their technology.

In addition to funding the Desert Research Institute’s project, the NSF is also funding the efforts of the Archaeological Research Institute and a research division at Arizona State called PRISM. These organizations have a limited on-line interactive exhibit now. Mounting such an exhibit requires an abundance of money and expertise. Archaeologists, physical anthropologists, biologists, software engineers, and multimedia artists brought their knowledge to bear in this $2 million, four-year project.

“We as archaeologists don’t typically have the highlevel math and programming skills or time to write software from scratch,” says Simon, who curates the exhibit. “The computer scientists have all these wonderful algorithms and graphic design principles, but they’re looking for data sets they can apply this to, and problems they can help solve. So that makes for a wonderful partnership. We have the subject matter, and they have the tool kit.”

“I think the key thing is designing it from the vantage point of the user,” Simon says of virtual archaeology projects. In order to obtain information about their collections via the Web, many museums require that researchers use a series of cryptic codes to search the database. Consequently, the researcher has to have a knowledge of those codes in order to get the desired information. Anyone visiting the Archaeological Research Institute’s Web site will be able to query the database by, for example, simply drawing a pot. They will also be able to zoom in on images and use virtual calipers to measure virtual artifacts.

Resolving NAGPRA Conflicts?

The Kennewick Man case is the best known example of how the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) can pit Native American interests against those of researchers.A coalition of tribes has claimed affiliation to the 9,400-year-old remains that were found in southeast Washington in 1996.Invoking NAGPRA,they have asked that the remains,which are kept at the Burke Museum in Seattle, be repatriated to them for reburial.Their claim has been opposed in court by a group of scientists who want to study the remains.

Virtual archaeology could help to resolve such conflicts by allowing researchers to study exact 3-D replicas of the repatriated items.The Archaeological Research Institute at Arizona State University has a virtual collection,and many of its items are mortuary vessels that have been repatriated to Native American groups due to NAGPRA.One of NAGPRA’s stipulations is that museums and federal agencies inventory their Native American collections and assess claims of affiliation by tribes to these collections,which can result in the repatriation of items.

“Virtual archaeology will help with NAGPRA situations,” according to Vin Steponaitis,an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina who helped craft the legislation.“It’s not a complete solution,” he adds,noting that there are limits to what can be accomplished through a virtual examination.

Another potential problem is that NAGPRA became law in 1990 and virtual archaeology is a subsequent development that the law didn’t anticipate. Consequently, if the courts were to rule that Kennewick Man is to be repatriated and the tribes objected to the study of a virtual Kennewick Man for spiritual reasons,the replicated remains could possibly engender another legal battle.

Though he states that there are “very slim legal grounds” for contesting the study of virtual images,Alan Schneider, an attorney for the scientists in the Kennewick Man case, believes this issue could well make its way to the courts. He observes that two of the tribes seeking the repatriation of Kennewick Man have argued that any information derived from the study of the remains should also be repatriated. —Michael Bawaya

According to Simon, the NSF is willing to fund the development of technologies like virtual archaeology, but, once developed, it won’t finance their operation. She says her virtual archaeology display uses unique technology that she hopes to patent. If the technology is patented, “The potential will be there to distribute this to other organizations,” she observes, which could provide the revenue necessary to maintain the exhibit. Simon has talked to about six universities and museums that have expressed an interest. She says there is “a real need” for the type of one-stop shop that McGwire and Livingston researched, but she also considers such a project to be “very ambitious. It would require a lot of resources to do that.”

That said, Simon and other proponents of virtual archaeology believe the technology will eventually gain wide popularity. “I think within five years a lot of museums will be doing this,” she states, “and within 10 years we will see some very complete on-line digital libraries.”

Should that come to pass, there could be some negative consequences as well. Due to the expense and amount of labor involved in 3-D scanning, museums could decide to pick and choose from their huge inventory, and some scientists fear that administrators would select flashier items over more representative ones. There is also the concern that money-minded administrators, possessing virtual replicas, could deaccession the real collections. “It’s part of this neoconservatism that’s invading the country, and now starting to invade museums and universities, where the fiscal bottom line is most important,” says archaeologist Steve Shackley of the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. “That’s a real fear a lot of us have.”

But it would seem that virtual archaeology has the potential to do far more good than harm. “There’s the research end to this, and there’s the teaching end,” says Clark. His project emphasizes both, and he adds that virtual archaeology can be an extremely effective means of educating elementary and high school students about the science.

“Having shown that this can be done on some level, it’s now up to museums to sit down and work together and say we want to pursue this,” says McGwire. “My responsibility now is to make it known.”

This raises the issue of supply and demand. Due in part to the country’s weak economy, many public institutions such as museums are struggling with budget cuts, which could indeed reduce the demand for virtual archaeology. If there is little demand for this technology, who will make the substantial investments of money and effort required to supply it? According to Holmlund, “There isn’t a real demand because the museums can’t afford it.” He estimates about 20 percent of his business involves using this technology.

But Holmlund and others think it’s just a matter of time before these financial obstacles are overcome. “If [museums] have the resources to expand into it, I think they will,” states Simon. Though the technology is still expensive, it’s less so than when she began using it in the late 1990s. “It is the future,” Clark declares. “It is inevitable.”

Michael Bawaya is the editor of American Archaeology.

For more information about virtual archaeology displays,visit the following Web sites: North Dakota State University Archaeology Technologies Laboratory: http://atl.ndsu.edu/home.htm Desert Research Institute: www.dpan.dri.edu Archaeological Research Institute: http://3dk.asu.edu