The Site Of Quirigua Through Time: The Use of Digital Reconstructions in the Context of a Comarative Photographic Project

Over two decades of technological and academic advances, numerous platforms and tools have been developed to help archaeologists visualize traditional data in new ways. The resulting products have ranged from realistic 3D models to virtual reality simulators to geographic information systems. In the field of digital archaeological visualization one of the main areas of development is to address the communication of the level of confidence and uncertainty in certain aspects of the visualizations. Quirigua is an ideal candidate to be used as the subject for the creation of a new digital visualization tool for archaeological sites that is designed to put to use some research materials, such as excavation photographs, largely ignored by digital archaeologists. Disciplines Anthropology This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/anthro_seniortheses/145 THE SITE OF QUIRIGUA THROUGH TIME: THE USE OF DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF A COMARATIVE PHOTOGRAPHIC PROJECT By William Gilbert In Anthropology Submitted to the Department of Anthropology University of Pennsylvania Thesis Advisor: Clark Erickson 2013 i Abstract Over two decades of technological and academic advances, numerous platforms and tools have been developed to help archaeologists visualize traditional data in new ways. The resulting products have ranged from realistic 3D models to virtual reality simulators to geographic information systems. In the field of digital archaeological visualization one of the main areas of development is to address the communication of the level of confidence and uncertainty in certain aspects of the visualizations. Quirigua is an ideal candidate to be used as the subject for the creation of a new digital visualization tool for archaeological sites that is designed to put to use some research materials, such as excavation photographs, largely ignored by digital archaeologists.