Restitution on site and virtual archeaology: Two lines for research

Abstract

The development of virtual models applied to heritage interpretation often aim for the understandable images of the past. In this sense, virtual archaeology is an educational tool that has a significant potential. However, virtual reconstructions of the past also could distort, offering images of the reality they interpret, which are believable, but often false. The confusion in the current state of knowledge regarding to the concepts implemented in the interventions on site and the production of virtual images requires raising terminological clarifications, defining all of the possible operations in the archaeological heritage: reconstruction, restitution, recreation, interpretation, simulation and rehabilitation. On the other hand, from the point of view of the current educational research, offering images of the past without approaching the methods that will lead to its development, does not provide any scientific knowledge. Thus, historical reconstruction without any method could become a factory of “myths”. For this reason, we believe that the virtual archaeology and any approach based on digital techniques should take into consideration the following items: Providing methodological tools for users to know how the knowledge has been acquired, providing different hypothesis that exist about the past, helping to develop critical thinking, and providing images of the past. To illustrate the above goals we provide a case study based on this theoretical argumentation. It is about the study of the archaeological site of the Iberian Citadel of Calafell, where it was possible to contrast archaeological research on site with iconographic research generated by digital models. The archaeological site is the only archaeological Protohistoric site on Iberian Peninsula, which has been restituted by experimental a