This is my first blog entry for the Visualizing The Past course. I had some initial confusion as to how to create a blog, but was pointed to the right link to do it by navigating around the class homepage. So this first entry may be a long, drawn out blurb about what I have done so far for this class. I will put down all that I have done so far, it might not necessarily be in order by date, but it should be close. If I have left some things out, I will put them down as they come back to me.
After registering late for class, I met with Clark Erickson in his office and he explained teh premise of the class and went over what I had missed in the first class meeting. He discussed in detail what was expected of the class and the nature of diversity of the class and how this approach may lead to new and exciting ideas for the direction of the class, for both anthropology students, computer science students, or students from any other disciplines.
In the week to follow I read the assigned reading for the course as well as the first three chapters of Bauer's first three chapters in the Inca Ceque system. This introduction gave me an overview of the general history, significance and extent of the system.
After watching the "Mystery of Chaco" video in class, I began exploring the Chaco Canyon area and region using Google Earth, looking for great houses, testing the resolution of the images in the area and looking to see if I could recognize some of the patterns I saw in the film. Turns out the resolution in Chaco Canyon itself is fair, but the resolution over many of the outlying sites is not so good. But it was cool being able to zoom in over, say Pueblo Bonito, and see actual roomblocks.
I also downloaded and begin to get a feel for Google Sketchup. Before this class I had never even heard of Sketchup and I have found it to be a pretty useful, and cool, tool that could have some practical applications in archaeology, once learned. I think I have an ok grasp of the basic tools of Sketchup but need a lot more practice to become comfortable with the program.
Assignment #1 was a pretty cool assignment in which we were required to watch movie about archaeology or archaeologists and critique the way in which it portrays those things. I chose a movie that was about neither, but which took place in an archaeological past, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner. I chose this because it was an all Native film with Native producers and actors. Although this wasn't specifically about archaeology or archaeologists, it does portray the past with the Natives essentially playing the role as the token "archaeologists consulted" in the movie. I argued that, although an archaeologists viewpoint could have been used in the making of this film, the story told was still just as valid, and perhaps even more valid, in the absence of the archaeologist.
On Thursday, September 24, Tom and I met with Clark in his office for just over two hours two discuss what kind of work he wants us to do as graduate students in the class. Clark is trying to construct usable GIS maps of the Cusco region in Peru to better map the Ceque system and its components. The trouble is the he has to construct these maps manually, as the Peru has no available (or it is very hard to obtain) geospatial coverage over the region Clark is interested in. I found this to be strange because in my little experience working with GIS and ArcMap, i have probably been spoiled with an abundance of geospatial data over the are for which I worked, readily accessible any time I needed. This included topo lines, infrastructure, borders, site data bases and the list goes on and on. However, where I am from in San Ildefonso Pueblo, there is a lack of coverage which has some set backs that I have to work around to get my work done. So I can see how and why Clark has to construct these maps, basically from scratch. It might seem like a tedious or laborious thing to do, but at the moment Clark has to do what he has to do the get these maps made.
This is where Tom and I come in. Clark gave us the task over the past few days to explore any overhead coverage of the Cusco region to help in the construction of the maps. Like I found in our meeting with Clark on this, it can be difficult at times. I created an account with USGS Earth Explorer so I can download maps and images, at least the free ones.
I used USGS Earth Explorer to search for images (the same program Clark used in our meeting) and had some difficulty finding some good images. Sometimes there would not be any available images based on the type of coverage or the file downloaded would not open. A file extension which Im not familiar with, "tar.gz" was one that I could not find a program to open. It was a little frustrating to say the least.
The construction of maps from scratch, paired with my limited abilities in using GIS have no doubt hindered my ability to find some useful images. I attempted over teh weekend to search for some images but had no luck, and am giving it another try again tonight. Hopefully I will have some better results to write about in my next blog.
