A Brief Introduction
Mesa Verde National Park's archaeological sites span over 700 years of Native American history. The renowned cliff dwellings, the height of the Puebloans' architecture, include more than 600 units. With such a wealth of sites to manage, the National Parks Service called on CyArk to emulate current documentation techniques with new digital technologies to demonstrate the advantages and capabilities of high definition survey and documentation.
Statement of Data QualitySpruce Tree House was captured to demonstrate the speed and accuracy of Digital Preservation technology as compared to traditional survey methods. This test included the façade, multiple kivas, and larger open spaces of Spruce Tree House, but a few interior rooms were documented with laser scanning and additional photography to provide context and additional visual information.
Square Tower House was documented to show the use of the technology to record site conditions after a catastrophic rock-face collapse. Most scans focused on the exceptional four-story tall Square Tower to fully investigate its structural integrity. As a result, only facades were documented from the rest of the site’s structures.
Fire Temple was recorded to provide training to NPS staff members in the theory, method, and practice of Digital Preservation. The relatively small nature of the site allowed for the most thorough documentation of the three Mesa Verde projects. The dataset from Fire Temple is mostly complete (with only some shadowed areas).
CyArk continues a close-relationship with Mesa Verde National Park and will add additional data to as it become available.
More Content
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Multimedia - View all photos, drawings, videos, and other content through a searchable thumbnail gallery |
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3D Content - Access all 3D content available for the site including point clouds and 3D models |
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Site Information - Browse all textual information for the site, supplemented with multimedia images |
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Interactive Map - Navigate through different areas of the site via basemaps and associated geo-referenced data |
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