A Glimpse through Time and Space: Visualizing Spatial Continuity and History Making at Çatalhöyük, Turkey

Abstract

The inhabitants of Çatalhöyük, a 13.5-hectare Neolithic site (ca. 7100-5900 BCE) located in central Anatolia, Turkey created material links between themselves and their past by repetitively constructing and maintaining mudbrick houses and actively retrieving skeletal remains from buried buildings. We argue that archaeological visualization is a viable tool to aid interpretation of this habituated behavior and commemorative links to the past, also known as "history making." This study employed widely adopted methods to ensure reliability, scientific rigor, and tracking of knowledge provenance in the implementation of multi-temporal 3D reconstructions of the Shrine 10 sequence, a series of superimposed buildings spanning a significant part of the site's chronology. Our results facilitate analysis of the history-making practices documented in the Shrine 10 sequence by providing unambiguous visual Author version. The final publication is available at JSTOR or ProjectMuse 2 representations of its complex archaeological record and enabling users to visualize the longterm history of this Neolithic built space.

Reconstructing Past Experience Using Virtual Reality

“…VR and AR systems also integrate multiple datasets, finds and artifacts for reconstructions that account for change over time in a site. Lercari and Busacca (2020) show how VR and AR can be utilized to provide reliable reconstructions of archaeological sites that are grounded in datasets produced with scientific rigor. This means that VR and AR can be used to understand the experiences of past people within a space, because the reconstructions are based on accurate archaeological data rather than conjecture or guesswork.…”

“…Not only does this 3D models offer an immersive visual experience, but the authors integrate a soundscape into the reconstruction that help in understanding what life was like onboard the ship when it actually sailed the ocean. Lercari and Busacca (2020) utilize immersive VR to create archaeological visualizations, that assist in interpretation of behavior and a better understanding of site chronology. The 3D reconstructions they produced of the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük offer a multi-temporal look at the sequence of construction over time.…”

“…Within the last category, of VR/AR, we focus on four examples that demonstrate how these technologies can advance an understanding of experience in the past through VR and AR. (1) Lercari and Busacca use VR to produce immersive visualizations of the archaeological site known Catalhöyuk in order to interpret and better understand the complex spatial relationships among its structures (N. Lercari & Busacca, 2020). ( 2) Graham et al show how AR can enhance the in-situ experience of archaeological landscapes through the introduction of sound, which may offer a more immersive experience when integrated with vision (Graham et al, 2019) (3) The Mayacitybuilder project illustrates how sound in combination with vision can enhance VR and move us closer towards a more synesthetic experience of the past (Goodwin & Richards-Rissetto, 2020).…”

Reconciling the dissonance between Historic Preservation and Virtual Reality through a Place-based Virtual Heritage system.

“…A brief look at the early years of virtual heritage, reveals that the main route to accessibility was initially (1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004) (Lercari et al 2018). These projects demonstrate that VH scholars are seeking to identify creative ways to incorporate accessibility into the design of their systems and research projects, and provide access to primary sources, data, products, and paradata regarding how the models were created and produced.…”