2017-2018 Faculty Research Grants

Oystein LaBianca (Behavioral Sciences).

Animation of the Cultural Landscape of Hisban and Vicinity in the Longue Duree.

This project follows up on comments by several panelists who provided written reviews of recent unsuccessful proposals for funding of Institute publication projects submitted to the National Endowment of Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies. Reviewers felt the plans outlined in our proposals were too traditional in that the focus was exclusively on production of print volumes. In today’s markets archaeological publishing, to be relevant, must include on-line presentation of findings using various technologies for rendering results using 3-D visualization and animation media. The goal of the present project is to build capacity here at the Institute of Archaeology in deployment of animation technologies for rendering of archaeological findings and narratives.  For our project we hope to be able to recreate detailed maps of Hisban through the ages. We want to be able to show the periods of occupation and abandonment by flying through Hisban at different time periods starting from the Bronze Age all the way through today. The final project will be an animated map showing topography, sites, and detailed information about those sites that can be accessed during the animation.

Oystein LaBianca (Behavioral Sciences)

Animation of the Cultural Landscape of Hisban and Vicinity in the Longue Duree

This project follows up on comments by several panelists who provided written reviews of recent unsuccessful proposals for funding of Institute publication projects submitted to the National Endowment of Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies. Reviewers felt the plans outlined in our proposals were too traditional in that the focus was exclusively on production of print volumes. In today’s markets archaeological publishing, to be relevant, must include on-line presentation of findings using various technologies for rendering results using 3-D visualization and animation media. The goal of the present project is to build capacity here at the Institute of Archaeology in deployment of animation technologies for rendering of archaeological findings and narratives.  For our project we hope to be able to recreate detailed maps of Hisban through the ages. We want to be able to show the periods of occupation and abandonment by flying through Hisban at different time periods starting from the Bronze Age all the way through today. The final project will be an animated map showing topography, sites, and detailed information about those sites that can be accessed during the animation.