Abstract

The project “3D-Digging at Çatalhöyük” began in 2010 thanks to collaboration between Stanford University (Archaeological Center) and the University of California Merced with the scope to record, document (with different digital technologies) and visualize in virtual reality all the phases of archaeological excavation. Phase I (2010 excavation season) of the project was mainly oriented to test different technologies during the excavation (time of flight and optical laser scanners). In phase II (2011 excavation season) the UC Merced team initiated the excavation of a Neolithic house (building 89), recording all the layers by time phase-shift scanners and computer vision techniques. The recording of the excavation process through the use of digital technologies gave the team the ability to generate 3D models of layers and micro-stratigraphies in stereovision during the excavation (using stereo projectors), so as to stimulate a new digital hermeneutics in archaeology. At the end of the fieldwork all the 3D models are accessible through a Teleimmersive system created by UC Merced and UC Berkeley.

<p>Thirteen years after the book “Virtual Archaeology” (Forte, 1996, 97) it is time to re-discuss the definition, the key concepts and some new trends and applications. The paper discusses the introduction of the term “cyber-archaeology” in relation with the simulation process deriving from the inter-connected and multivocal feedback between users/actors and virtual ecosystems. In this new context of cyber worlds, it is more appropriate to talk about simulation of the past rather than reconstruction of the past. The multivocality of the simulation opens new perspectives in the interpretation process, not imposing the final reconstruction, but suggesting, evocating, simulating multiple output, not “the past” but a potential past.</p><p>New epistemological models of cyber archaeology have to be investigated: what happens in a immersive environment of virtual archaeology where every user is "embodied” in the cyber space? The ontology of archaeological information, or the cybernetics of archaeology, refers to all the interconnective relationships which the datum produces, the code of transmission, and its transmittability. Because it depends on interrelationships, by its very nature information cannot be neutral with respect to how it is processed and perceived. It follows that the process of knowledge and communication have to be unified and represented by a single vector. 3D information is regarded as the core of the knowledge process, because it creates feedback, then cybernetic difference, among the interactor, the scientist and the ecosystem. It is argued that Virtual Reality (both offline and online) represents a possible ecosystem, which is able to host top-down and bottom-up processes of knowledge and communication. In these terms, the past is generated and coded by “a simulation process”. Thus, from the first phases of data acquisition in the field, the technical methodologies and technologies that we use, influence in a decisive way all the subsequent phases of interpretation and communication. In the light of these considerations, what is the relationship between information and representation? How much information does a digital model contain? What sorts of and how many ontologies ought to be chosen to permit an acceptable transmittability? Indeed, our Archaeological communication ought to be understood as a process of validation of the entire cognitive process of understanding and not as a simple addendum to research, or as a dispensable compendium of data.</p>

:Advanced data capture techniques, cost-effective data processing, and visualization technologies provide viable solutions for the documentation and curation of archaeological heritage and material culture. Work at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Çatalhöyük has demonstrated that new digital approaches for capturing, processing, analyzing, and curating stratigraphic data in 3D are now feasible. Real-time visualization engines allow us to simulate the stratigraphy of a site, the three-dimensional surfaces of ancient buildings, as well as the ever-changing morphology of cultural landscapes. Nonetheless, more work needs to be done to address methodological questions such as: can threedimensional models and stratigraphic relationships, based on 3D surfaces and volumes, be used to perform archaeological interpretation? How can a 3D virtual scenario become the interface to cultural data and metadata stored in external online databases? How can we foster a sense of presence and user embodiment in the simulation of ancient cities and archaeological sites? This article aims to provide viable solutions to the methodological challenge of designing a comprehensive digital archaeological workflow from the data acquisition and interpretation in the field to a three-dimensional digital data curation based on interactive visualization, searchable 3D data, and virtual environments. This work describes the results we achieved developing the application Dig@IT, a multi-platform, scalable virtual reality tool able to foster archaeological data analysis, interpretation, and curation in a realistic and highly-interactive virtual environment.

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