Back to VR Archeology
List | Home
Native American Virtual Reality Archaeology:
An Architect's Perspective
This paper will be published as a chapter of the book, VIRTUAL
REALITY IN ARCHAEOLOGY, Edited by Juan A. Barcelo, Spring, 2000
(anticipated), Archeo Press, London, England.
Dennis R. Holloway, Architect
Rio Rancho, New Mexico, USA
Pre-Columbian Native American architecture of the Southwest
U.S., specifically that of the so-called "Anasazi
People", has always fascinated me. When my architecture
practice brought me to work in New Mexico in 1990, I was amazed
to find the extent of the presence of this native architecture
in the high desert landscape. Ceramics, lithics, and mounds of
collapsed village and compound walls can be seen on terraces wherever
there is nearby flowing water and bottom land. While most visible
traces of pre-historic native architecture have been destroyed
in the rest of the U.S. , due primarily to Eurocentric agricultural
practices and urbanization, the American Southwest still displays
an extraordinarily large number of sites, many of which have yet
to be studied in depth by archaeologists.
My own architectural education and training had not fully prepared
me for what I would re-discover in these ancient sites. As a student,
history of architecture was one of my favorite subjects, but the
architecture of Pre-Columbian America was only briefly touched
upon by the professors. The study of European temples, cathedrals
and "modernism" was the main emphasis. What I found
during my casual explorations of the New Mexico landscape was
a profoundly unique kind of vernacular architecture and a class
of "great" architecture distinct from those in all other
parts of the world. As I shared my enthusiasm for rediscovering
this architecture with my New Mexican Hispano, Anglo, and Pueblo
Indian friends, I was surprised to find that most of them did
not know much about these ancient places. What most surprised
me, was the fact that Pueblo
Indians, who worship their ancestors who built these places,
had (seemingly) forgotten about them. A Pueblo Indian friend told
me he had never visited the Great
House ruins of Chaco Canyon nor the Cliff
Dwelling ruins of Mesa Verde, which are among the most touristed
places in the Southwest.
In architecture and anthropology libraries and collections there
is a great quantity of accumulated archaeological data and ruins
photography on this architecture, but very little information
on theoretical visual reconstructions. Classical perspective or
axonometric drawing in American archaeology seems to be a forgotten
or yet-to-be-discovered art. Many sites have never been
imaged or modeled in any way, other than measured plans, elevations,
and cross-sections. Serious reconstruction pictures, perspective
views or study models are rare. American archaeology seems to
have overlooked the importance of architecture, in favor of other
artifacts such as pottery and lithics. This has severely limited
understanding of this important world architecture. Surely architecture
offers us an equally important, if not more important, axis to
the anthropology of pre-historic America.
In spare time I began to study the collections of archaeological
data on the Anasazi sites. Each site I studied was an architectural
gem, which, because I am an architect, I could clearly imagine
in my mind's eye; but while I could imagine these places inside
and out, but there was no communicable image. I was struck with
the diversity of space planning and architectonic appearances
of the various sites. There is a visual continuum in the various
contemporaneous regional idioms of architecture of the Anasazi--in
terms of construction materials, and geometrical and structural
systems. Yet the conceptual design framework of each individual
place is unique from all the rest in a ratio not unrelated to
the ambient environmental variants.
I realized that something had to be done about the shortage of
visual images of reconstructions of specific places. I wanted
to show and share this beautifully unique and diverse indigenous
architectural phenomenon with both the Native people and the American
"newcomers". But to draw a classical static one, two,
or three-point perspective or an axonometric view of each of the
thousands of documented American sites, with the traditional pencils,
ink, and paper could require the work of many people over a long
period of time.
At about this time, I was beginning to learn to use new 3D
CAD / Virtual Reality software on the Macintosh computer,
introduced to me by my client and friend, artist Ronald Davis.
I was astonished at how rapidly, clearly, and vibrantly a Virtual
Reality model of a project design could be imaged on a computer
and presented to the client. It was gratifying how positively
my clients responded and how practice with this new technology
brought in more referrals and commissions. The visual communication
technology in the field of architecture is in revolution. One
day it dawned upon me that with the advent of cybernetic Virtual
Reality, rapid modeling of heretofore arcane Southwest archaeological
information is possible. A person using a computer, now or in
the future, could "virtually" walk into the pre-Columbian
Native American architectural world. Thus I began a "hobby"
of VR modeling of Anasazi places.
As a starting point, the research and writing of American archaeologist,
Stephen H. Lekson, provided me with good information about Anasazi
architecture. His Great Pueblo Architecture of Chaco Canyon,
New Mexico, contains plan drawings, story numbers and heights,
construction details, and construction sequence chronologies of
the Great Houses of the Canyon. By scanning Lekson's drawings
into my Macintosh, I had enough scaled three-dimensional and temporal
information to build VR models of Pueblo Bonito and Pueblo del
Arroyo in animated
construction sequences. I was astonished with the speed at
which the computer allowed me to do this. The success of these
early reconstruction encouraged me to continue my hobby.
Figure 1: "Ray tracing" is the most realistic way
to visually represent a 3D object on a computer screen. It is
more advanced than simple rendering in that the final image can
have reflective, refractive, and texture qualities with shading
and shadowing automatically calculated, given the source, color
and intensity of light as well as the observer's viewpoint. Shown
here is a reconstruction of the pre-Columbian Great House, "Pueblo
Bonito", in Chaco Canyon National Historic Park, New
Mexico, USA.
When I first exhibited printed still "ray-traced"
color images of these VR models at the Bareiss Gallery in Taos,
New Mexico, USA, in 1991, the reaction from local Hispanic Taoseños,
Native Americans, and descendants of Chaco Canyon Anasazi was
positive and encouraging. For the first time they could see something
that they had only heard about. As well, they were initiated into
some mysteries of the so-called "Chaco
Phenomenon", known previously only by the archaeological
community. One normally reticent Pueblo artist friend became ecstatic
upon seeing for the first time in 3D the large number of kivas
(round ceremonial chambers) of Pueblo Bonito, and began to expound
his interpretation of what that meant.
When I put my VR Anasazi work on-line on my web site, I was shocked
at the world response. Currently the site is averaging about 60,000
hits per month, and I get voluminous e-mail from visitors worldwide.
The gist of the feedback is that VR reconstruction of the past
is vitally important. Subsequently, I continued this work to include,
at this writing, about sixty models of "great" Southwest
architecture.
Figure 2: Ray traced image of VR reconstruction model of the
pre-Columbian Great House, "Chetro
Ketl", Chaco Canyon National Historic Park, New Mexico,
USA. With archaeological data supplied by Stephen H. Lekson, the
model is constructed to show only what is known as a result of
excavations.
Work on these VR models has been a profound personal education
for me. Because the VR modeler becomes intimately acquainted with
the archaeological data, the experience of building a VR model
can be an intense one--perhaps the most intense and complex form
of study possible. While building the VR model from the data,
the modeler may begin to get intuitive flashes of how an architecture
or place looked during its existence. Sometimes working late at
night, I had a comforting sense that the original "architects"
of these places were standing over my shoulder, teaching me while
guiding my hand through the many mouse-clicks and key-strokes
required for each model. In building these models I learned an
entirely new idiom of world architecture and village planning,
the environmental principles of which seem, in my opinion, more
relevant to the American milieu, than the transplanted architectural
and planning principles of the so-called "modern movement"
of the Industrial Revolution. This experience has influenced my New Mexico architecture
practice in the way I think about design and materials of
construction, and I have been honored by several New Mexico Indian
Tribes, who have commissioned me to design "culturally
relevant" buildings as alternatives to main-stream architecture.
Virtual Reality models are dynamic processes--not static pictures
as with previous Western presentation media. VR models allow us
to put all of our contemporary knowledge and thought about an
object into a user-interactive presentation or encounter. VR models
may be modified with the passage of time or as new information
becomes available. Thus, a VR model can be a repository for all
new knowledge about the past, present, and theoretical future
of an object. When I work on a VR model, as with my work in architecture,
I try to be aware that my product is going to be experienced or
revised by other people long after I am gone. Because VR models
are likely to exist into the future, they may be refined in the
future by others as new archaeological data becomes available.
They should be constructed with that in mind--in a way that facilitates
future corrections, expanded detailing or changes in scale. Processes
like grouping elements, labeling and dating of all the parts,
phases, and subcategorizes, and showing scale and orientation
can facilitate the VR model's future enhancement. I think of the
VR model as a complete known specification for a site that should
be capable of accepting new information as it becomes available.
Because VR is the daughter of the computer, like the computer,
it must be future oriented--even while expanding knowledge of
the past.
Figure 3: Screen capture of VIDI
Presenter Pro (recently renamed 3D Joy) software; shown here
in process of reconstruction is the Great House of Tyuonyi, pre-historic
Rio Grande Anasazi site, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico,
USA. The working environment includes top view, front view, right
view, interactive perspective view, tools and color palettes,
and hierarchical groups window. VIDI web site may be found at
http://www.VIDI.com.
Useful information to acquire in preparing for construction
of a VR architectural archeology model could includes measured
or surveyed floor plans, sections, and elevations. This data should
contain a graphical scale and a "true" north arrow that
has been corrected from magnetic variance. Topographical data
of the surrounding site or site context including proximity to
water courses, aerial photographs and other site photos, adjacent
structures or natural formations, and underground or other "hidden"
data. Dating of the parts of the object/buildings/compound to
be modeled is essential for construction-sequence or metamorphic
modeling. Construction details for outer walls, inner walls, floors,
and roofs, specified materials used for construction, and their
color and texture can all be built into the VR model. Once this
information has been acquired for a given site, the images can
be scanned into the computer and referred to as the model is constructed
using VR software. In the future, we should see dramatic developments
in software that allows the archaeological team to construct the
VR model directly as surveying , surface scanning or excavation
proceed.
Figure 4: Ray traced VR model image of Acoma
Pueblo considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited
place in North America. Data for this model is from the 1934 Historic American Building
Survey of the architecture of the Pueblo. All measured exterior
elevations and plans were scanned, and used as model templates.
The window frames and doors have not yet been modeled in this
work-in-process.
Figure 5: Electronic photo-montage showing "Kwastiyukwa",
ancestral village of Jemez
Pueblo and largest of the know pre-Columbian Indian Pueblos.
The model and sun angle were manipulated "by eye" to
match the angles of Paul
Logsdon's aerial photograph of the ruin site. Using Photoshop
the image of the model was "pasted into" a selected
area of the scanned site photo. The composite image was then retouched
to create the "treeless" area surrounding the Pueblo.
Figure 6: Electronic photo-montage showing the interior of
the "Great Kiva" (with roof covering removed), Aztec
Ruins National Monument, New Mexico, USA. The VR model was
first ray traced, and then a scanned image of the sky was pasted
into the background to give a more realistic effect.
This new freedom to interactively animate a model in VR space,
look at it at will in real time, photo-realistically from any
angle, inside or outside, and at different points in its temporal
existence, is the most radical new way of looking at objects in
space, since the early European Renaissance. It has enormous implications
on the advancement of all fields using visual 3D information.
Virtual Reality can be a very powerful media for presenting new
ideas about the past. The potential societal impact of new archaeological
knowledge gained from VR experience should be taken very seriously
by the VR model builder. In the Nineteenth Century, John
Ruskin declared that architecture is the most permanent collective
cultural memory of an age--a "lamp" that all future
generations will see. Today, at the dawn of the cyber age, and
with the new VR technology, the past can be remembered like never
before. By refreshing cultural memory, archaeology has been a
powerful influence in the development of emerging world ideas
and politics. Utilizing the tool of Virtual Reality, archaeology
will continue to gain in importance.
When European architects (the first "archaeologists")
studied and became conscious of the architectural ruins of ancient
Greece and Rome, a European Renaissance resulted, which influenced
all the world arts and sciences down to the present time. With
the new VR study of ancient Native American architecture, can
a similar phenomenon be underway in the Americas? Certainly the
culture of Native Americans will be empowered. Can the general
shift towards world-wide VR archaeology herald a New World Renaissance
in which all the people of the world become re-awakened to the
wonders of a forgotten past? Certainly we will all better understand
our human inter-connectedness, and that can contribute to the
search for world peace.
With the advent of VR, society has attained a quantum leap in
visual imagery and visual literacy. To meet the future needs of
this new VR-savvy audience, the disciplines of archaeology and
architecture must collaborate much more integrally than in the
past. VR architects can work alongside VR archaeologists to create
the most virtually real images and experiences of forgotten buildings
and places. Archaeology and architecture schools need to encourage
reciprocal cross-disciplinary studies, so that this necessary
teamwork will be less daunting. Indeed the emergence of VR may
propound a new field of study; perhaps we should call it "archaeotecture"-
from ancient + building.
As we VR image places that heretofore have existed in esoteric
library collections, those places become more integrated into
the public consciousness about the planetary past. This consciousness
raising is a logical extension and augmentation of the green or
environmental movement. Virtual Reality is important, because
it brings us closer to an understanding of the illusion in which
we exist--from VR we get a broader understanding of our place
and time in the cosmos, and we are sensitized to the significance
and meaning of living in our own time. By knowing where mankind
has been, we may better understand where we should go.
Through the experience of VR, the relativity of Space and Time
has become palpable--not just theoretical. Today, while sitting
in front of a computer console, it is possible to experience the
VR flythrough of ancient Egypt and simultaneously be in web cam
ICQ chat with someone in the Netherlands. In the future there
is no telling to what new perceptual thresholds VR technology
will take us.
Bibliography
PETER
NABOKOV and ROBERT EASTON, 1989, Native
American Architecture, Oxford University Press, New York
and Oxford.
STEPHEN
LEKSON ,WILLIAM B. GILLESPIE, and THOMAS C. WINDE, 1984, Great
Pueblo Architecture of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, University
of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.
STEPHEN
H. LEKSON (EDITOR), JEFFREY S. DEAN, PETER J. McKENNA, RICHARD
L. WARREN, and Thomas C. Winde, FORWARD BY FLORENCE HAWLEY ELLIS,
1983, The Architecture and Dendrochronology of Chetro Ketl,
Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, Division of Cultural Research, National
Park Service, U.S. Department of Interior, Albuquerque, New Mexico,
USA.
PETER NABOKOV,
1986, Architecture of Acoma Pueblo: The 1934 Historic
American Building Survey Project, Ancient City Press, Santa
Fe, New Mexico, USA.
WILLIAM MORGAN, 1994, Ancient
Architecture of the Southwest [U.S.], University of Texas
Press, Austin, Texas, USA.
WILLIAM C. STURTEVANT (General Editor) and ALFONSO
ORTIZ (Volume Editor), 1979, Handbook of North American
Indians, Volume 9, Southwest, Smithsonian Institution, Washington
D.C., USA.
MICHAEL A. ADLER
(Editor) 1996, The
Prehistoric Pueblo World A.D. 1150-1350, The University
of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona, USA.
Your comments and feedback are welcome. Please contact
Dennis Holloway, Architect, via e-mail:
archvr@cybermesa.com
Top of Page