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Archaeogaming

Archaeogaming

Andrew Reinhard

(2018)

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Book Details

Abstract

Video games exemplify contemporary material objects, resources, and spaces that people use to define their culture. Video games also serve as archaeological sites in the traditional sense as a place, in which evidence of past activity is preserved and has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology, and which represents a part of the archaeological record. This book serves as a general introduction to "archaeogaming"; it describes the intersection of archaeology and video games and applies archaeological method and theory into understanding game-spaces as both site and artifact.


Andrew Reinhard is the Director of Publications for the American Numismatic Society and is currently working towards his PhD in archaeology at the University of York’s (UK) Centre for Digital Heritage. He coined the term “archaeogaming” and runs the archaeogaming.com blog and twitter. In 2014, he and a team of archaeologists helped excavate the Atari Burial Ground in Alamogordo, New Mexico.


“Reinhard’s willingness to move between the densely philosophical, the methodological, and the colloquial would make this book a nice option for an introductory archaeology class where students learn about theory, methods, procedures, and techniques, but less frequently have opportunities to put these ideas into practice…Reinhard’s book provides both the student and the scholar a way to think about what this kind of work will look like.” • The Archaeology of the Mediterranean World

“This is a stellar piece of work that moves beyond disciplines and worlds.” • Anna Foka, Umeå University

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Archaeogaming 1
Contents 7
List of Illustrations 8
Acknowledgments 10
Introduction 13
Chapter 1 — Real-World Archaeogaming 35
Chapter 2 — Playing as Archaeologists 74
Chapter 3 — Video Games as Archaeological Sites 100
Chapter 4 — Material Culture of the Immaterial 174
Conclusion 209
Appendix — No Man's Sky Archaeological Survey (NMSAS) Code of Ethics 215
Glossary 222
Works Cited 225
Games Cited 232
Index 234