The Interactive Pasts Conference: Lennart Linde & Felix Robra
21Presentation at the Interactive Pasts Conference, April 4th 2016, Leiden University.
Lennart Linde & Felix Robra (Goethe University)
Excavate a Virtual Place in a Virtual World: Conducting archaeological fieldwork in Dwarf Fortress
"In this talk we will follow the dwarven archaeologist „Thob Lelumsigun“ to the abandoned fort of „Zaludmomuz“ where he will excavate its forgotten halls and corridors. Discovering the remains of a long elapsed civilization consisting of elaborate architecture, lavish engravings and worn out socks. All in the ASCII beauty of Dwarf Fortress, which is thought to be the most complex (and complicated) video game of all time. Where losing is considered FUN.
The core of Dwarf Fortress is a world generation tool that creates not only a detailed world with landscapes, various biomes, places and its inhabitants. It will also simulate and record a comprehensive history of the world and the interactions of the civilizations within. These historical events are preserved by the inhabitants of the world as engravings on walls and artifacts. Various game modes allow the player to interact with the world and become a part of its lore.
Rediscovered artifacts, engravings and ruins are the empirical base of archaeology. But the day to day work is to connect and contextualize these data in an attempt to paint a bigger picture. This talk will discuss the problems of such attempts. It will serve as a showcase on what archaeology can and can’t say about complex societies and their interactions based solely on their residues. Our talk will show you how we processed the archeological data from virtual artifacts and places with real world methods. Giving you a tiny glimpse on weird and nerdy stuff like: Typology, Chronology, Seriation, Network Analysis, Spatial Data and Dwarf Fortress."
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