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Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies

University of Arkansas

Upper Nodena Village Visualization

Home » Research » Archaeology/Historic Preservation » Archaeological Visualization » Upper Nodena Village Visualization

As part of the Virtual Hampson Museum Project,  a series of 3D visualizations of the pre-Columbian, Mississippian Period Nodena Village in north-eastern Arkansas have been created.The goal of the images is to give you a better sense of what the site might have looked like some 500 years ago. We can never be certain how the village appeared but we have pulled together information from archaeological investigation, traditional sources and historical records. View more of the images in the 3D Nodena Village section of the Virtual Museum and be sure to explore the 3D Visualization FAQ section for more details.

Visualization as a vehicle to interrogate the past

A key element of the project was to see visualization as a method to interrogate the past. In this sense visualizations link sources from the archaeological, historic and traditional Indian community. In creating a single image many specific decisions had to be made. In creating a house, for example, we needed to decide how tall the walls are to be, how thick they were, what color they were and so on. The same is true for all aspects of the recreation. In the Nodena Village FAQ  we attempt to provide the basis for each of the decisions that were made and the links to the historic records, traditional community knowledge and archaeological data.

Archaeological data were an important source for the visualizations but they also have their  limitations. We have made a conscious decision to be strongly directed by the archaeological data but not limited by it. If we only (re)created elements of the site that were known from archaeological data we would provide an image that was scientifically "accurate" but clearly untrue and not authentic. We would be forced to leave out many things that we can be certain were present, such as cooking areas, drying racks and many other items of everyday life that were present but (usually) not preserved or discovered in the archaeological record. In an ideal world we would want to give our images to a Nodena villager who would agree that these "looked like her home." Of course this is impossible -- but we keep this ideal in mind.

Another important source is traditional knowledge from various Indian communities. In this we draw upon artistic traditions, art styles, narratives and other sources.Our over all approach has been to evaluate all the various lines of evidence and inferences and to carefully aggregate and evaluate all these sources. In any event we have provided the basis for these decisions in the FAQ. 

It is also important to remember that any image is just one of many possible images. The evidence and the sources do not usually provide a single, unequivocal answer. Often there are two, or more, different possibilities.  As is the case with Upper Nodena, there are different opinions as to whether or not the village may have been surrounded by a ditch or palisade or neither.  Fortunately the computer visualization techniques that we have used provide a great deal of flexibility and we are able to create images that depict the "virtual village" both with and without a palisade (as shown above).  For more details on the decisions that governed the Nodena Visualizations, visit the 3D FAQ section. 

Nodena Village background

The Upper Nodena Site occupied an area of approximately 15 acres. It is located on a relict channel of the Mississippi river in northeastern Arkansas and is considered to be occupied between A.D. 1400-1600. The site had a ceremonial or 'corporate' complex of two pyramidal mounds, a burial mound, and (possibly) a plaza connecting the mounds and a chunkey field. Archaeologists estimate that the town's population was between 1000 and 1500 at any given time during its 100 years of occupation.

The village also included nearby agricultural fields and groves. The residents of the town practiced maize and bean agriculture, and consumed many local wild plants, such as hickory nuts, black walnuts, hazelnuts, persimmon, wild cherry and paw paw in their diets. They hunted deer, bear, raccoon, rabbit, and turkey, waterfowl and fish. See the What is Nodena section in the Virtual Museum for more information. 

Visualization software used in this project include Sketchup, SoftImage and  VUE 8.

The project was been funded by the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council.