It’s interesting to think about how much technology is used to look back in time, so to speak. I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that it’s possible to see back millions of years in space, but on a more earthbound level, technology is able to make even ancient history clearer and more tangible than ever before. 3D technology, in particular, allows us to restore ancient objects and even rebuild things that no longer exist.

3D printing and scanning are just part of the arsenal of technology used by the University of Alabama’s Office of Archaeological Research (OAR) to bring the past into the present. We’ve written about archaeologists who have used 3D scanning and printing to reproduce and study fossils and ancient artifacts, but researchers at OAR have been using 3D modeling to reconstruct entire towns. Jeremiah Stager, a cultural resources assistant at OAR, was able to virtually rebuild an entire Alabama town as it existed in the early 20th century.  READ MORE