An Overview of Digitally Documenting Surface and Subterranean Sites at the U.S. Army’s Pohakuloa Training Area, Hawai‘i

Abstract

Recent archaeological survey work at the at the U.S. Army’s Pōhakuloa Training (TA) Area 22, Hawaiʻi, used low-cost, highly portable, three-dimensional (3D) modeling techniques to document surface and subterranean sites. Project crews created 65 photo models of previously undocumented cairns, rock shelters, and cave entrances. They used consumer-grade point-and-shoot and DLSR cameras and commercial photogrammetric software. There are also over a dozen new models of underground lava tubes, using Microsoft Kinects as sensors. Over the last decade, 3D modeling of archaeological resources has become commonplace. Limitations associated with the cost, difficulty of use, and limited mobility of LiDAR technology have discouraged digitizing widelyscattered archaeological resources in difficult terrain. The digital recording work at PTA provides scaled representations of sites that are as or more accurate than those obtained from traditional field recording techniques.