Opening the Doors to the Southwest’s Past
The Virtual Great Kiva at Aztec Ruins
If you’ve been lucky enough to personally visit any archaeological sites in the Southwest, you probably remember some of the feelings you experienced. To give more people across the world a chance to have that kind of encounter, Archaeology Southwest is launching Virtual Southwest, an online museum that will allow web users across the globe to visit important southwestern archaeological sites from their own computers.
Sites will be rebuilt in virtual space. Visitors will walk through the rooms, plazas, and other spaces as if transported back to the time when these places were inhabited. Virtual models of pots and other artifacts will be placed back into the rebuilt virtual sites. Online visitors can hold these objects and investigate them more closely. Virtual Southwest will give online users a complete, immersed experience of special places of the past.
To get just a sense of what experiencing a site in Virtual Southwest will be like, click here.
Adriel Heisey, Reeve Ruin
In 2012, Archaeology Southwest’s Digital Humanities Lab plans to model the sites of Reeve and Davis Ranch in the Lower San Pedro River Valley of Arizona. These sites, occupied from A.D. 1275 to 1400, teach us about migration and change in the late prehistoric Southwest. They tell an important part of the story of Salado in the San Pedro Valley, and, as such, inform on the larger history of the entire Southwest.
A number of years ago, Archaeology Southwest sponsored a special project that brought Native American elders from Tohono O’odham, Hopi, Zuni, and Western Apache communities to the San Pedro valley to experience some of the sites in the region, including Reeve and Davis Ranch. These elders expressed a sense of connection to these places, and an appreciation for the opportunity to experience them first-hand. They also acknowledged their hope that the younger generation would have a chance to visit these traditional landscapes.
Through the Virtual Southwest project, every Native American schoolchild with access to the Internet will be able to stand outside the kiva at the Davis Ranch site, hike down the slope to the river valley, cross the river, climb up the steep path to the single opening in the wall surrounding the Reeve pueblo, and walk inside. Virtual Southwest will allow them to experience at least a sense of where their ancestors once walked and lived. What a door to open for these young people! Your donations will make this experience a reality.
As the year end approaches, our goal is to raise $20,000 to underwrite the creation of the Reeve and Davis Ranch models. Your generous donation will open the doors of the Southwest’s past to all. By helping others directly experience these places through Virtual Southwest, you help them both explore and protect the places of our past.
Please use the form below to make your donation today. Thank you for your time and your support.
