What does it take to travel thousands of years into the past?
For Rebecca Bria, PhD, an archaeologist and assistant professor of anthropology in the UT San Antonio College of Liberal and Fine Arts, it means spending months at a time more than 10,000 feet above sea level in the northern Peruvian Andes, carefully peeling back layers of earth to uncover clues about the people who once lived there.
In the newest episode of Launchpad: Voices of Innovation, Bria takes listeners beyond the Indiana Jones image of archaeology and into the realities of modern fieldwork, where the goal isn’t finding a long-lost relic but understanding how people lived, worked, worshipped and built communities across Peru’s ancient past.
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Bria’s research explores the daily lives of people who lived in the region thousands of years ago, including farmers who cultivated the land and tended animals such as llamas and alpacas.
Her work combines scientific analysis with something less easily measured: imagination.
“If we lose the ability to imagine what that past was like, we’re kind of telling a really flat, boring history that does not give justice to the people who we’re studying,” Bria said.
Listen to the podcast to learn more about how Bria and her colleague and UT San Antonio alumnus Bruce Carlisle, are developing a virtual reality experience that allows users to explore reconstructed ancient spaces as a “portal to the past” — an idea inspired by workshops with schoolchildren in Peru.
