Shawn’s presentation at Brock’s Immersive Worlds conference, held in June 2007, may be listened to here: The Virtual Archaeologist: Of Past Lives and Second Lives
Abstract:
Archaeology is about material culture, about exploring the human condition (not necessarily in the past) through how we create and manipulate objects. In recent years, the power of computers has opened up new universes for exploration, places where individuals create the world around them. Up to now, most archaeological studies with the word ‘virtual’ in the title have been aimed at teaching or at least sprucing up the graphics in the final excavation report. I would argue instead that these are worlds deserving of archaeological study, indeed needing an archaeological study in that they are pure constructions of will and imagination. ‘Virtual Worlds’ are in themselves nothing new: from the Hanging Gardens of Bablyon to the Villa of Hadrian at Tivoli, to Disneyland in Florida, humans have been creating fantastical worlds to live in, to express themselves, and to explore. What will we find when we look with an archaeological eye inside the virtual universe of Second Life? What is the role for archaeology in these virtual worlds? This paper documents some of my early explorations as a virtual archaeologist.