Cleland, Aoife
(2024)
A Critical Appraisal of Virtual Reconstructions in Archaeology.
MRes thesis, University of Nottingham.
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Abstract
Archaeology will always be a partially imagined account of the past based on fragmentary evidence. Since the beginnings of the discipline, archaeologists have used artistic visualisations to create and communicate hypothetical holistic views of the past – virtual reconstructions (VRs) are the latest technique to be developed. Since their creation in the 1980’s, VRs have constantly evolved with the development of technology, providing more opportunities for archaeologists to engage a wider audience in their cultural past. Forte and Murteria (2020) argue that VRs have changed our relationship with the past; they have made the past more active, immersive and personal, allowing viewers to ‘inhabit’ ancient spaces (Forte 2005). Technology has also changed how archaeologists operate; Morgan (2022) suggests its impact can be seen in how archaeologists perceive the past and disseminate those interpretations. ‘VR’ in the context of this present work will refer to a computer-based 3D digital model of a past historical environment. The VRs in this thesis can be found in museums/heritage attractions or within peer-reviewed scholarly work.
Within the last twenty years, VRs have become popular for both scholars and the public. Limoncelli (2017) and Nicolls (2019) advocate the use of VRs as a noninvasive technique to digitally ‘restore’ archaeological remains without the irreversible damage of physical restoration. However, VRs (like many other visual interpretation methods) have also faced harsh scrutiny. Academic debates within the last decade have fixated on the creation of a standardised scientific methodology (Pfarr-Harfst 2018). From the early 2000s, the impact of issues such as accuracy, authenticity and transparency of data dominated scholarly debates and made some archaeologists fearful of misleading the public. Immersive VRs exert a significant influence over the viewer and factually incorrect reconstructions could be mistaken for historical truth, affecting the public’s perception of the past (Miller and Richards 1994). Behind these fears is a more profound debate about the control of the narrative of the past – who is creating the narrative, who should have access and who is the knowledge for? These questions are not restricted to VRs but are relevant to the wider archaeological discipline. I will be expanding upon this within Chapters 1 and 2.
In addition to this fear, rapid technological advancement presents challenges; although this fast progression is positive, the speed of development has created a feeling of a lack of control amongst some academics. The pace at which this field has developed in the last 25 years has meant that the outputs of VR have outpaced the contemporary ethical and methodological frameworks (Dennis 2020; Forte 2015).
In an attempt to regulate this field and grasp control, a number of guidance documents were produced between 1990 and 2015 to help ‘standardise’ the practice of creating VRs. Two examples are The London Charter for the Computer-Based Visualisation of Cultural Heritage (London Charter 2.1, 2009) and The Principles of the Seville Charter (Seville Principles 2011). The London Charter is a set of principles that aimed to create a framework to which all VRs could be measured against to increase the prestige of VRs as a research tool – legitimising their scientific rigour (Denard 2012; Barratt 2021). However, some scholars (e.g., Forte 2015) have argued that the London Charter was too utopian to be put into practice. Consequently, the Seville Principles were created to increase the applicability of the London Charter, aiding its practical implementation within the wider field (Gabellone 2015a).
In this thesis, I will firstly undertake a critical review of the London Charter and the Seville Principles to determine how far these documents impacted the digital archaeological discipline (Chapter 1). I will then examine the ethics of practice and ongoing debates in post-charter scholarship (Chapter 2). From this assessment, I have determined two major debates which directly impact the creation of VRs – Transparency vs Visitor Experience (Chapter 3) and Agency of the Viewer (Chapter 4).
In each chapter, I will investigate a different research question, as follows:
1. How far do the London Charter and the Seville Principles still impact digital archaeological scholarship?
2. What are the current issues that VRs face and how far do they affect the study of VRs?
3. How far does visitor experience affect the transparency of archaeological data within a VR?
4. To what extent are the creators of VR controlling the agency of the viewer and how far is this ‘gatekeeping’ ethical?
Within each chapter, I will use three case studies – Stonehenge (Wiltshire, UK), St. Augustine’s Abbey (Kent, UK) and the Roman Domus, Palazzo Valentini (Rome, Italy) – to investigate how far practical examples of VRs are influenced by scholarly debates. I have chosen these case studies as each are used in their site as a visual edutainment tool. Each case study has its own strengths and weaknesses and uses different techniques to present their model of the past.
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