On this episode we talk with John Rissetto, the State Environmental Coordinator with the USDA-Farm Service Agency for Nebraska. He and Gus discuss the curious juxtaposition between protecting the old by leveraging the new, such as the use of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) in archeology and how it was used to find historic trails and buildings in Nebraska that are not discernible to the naked eye. Thank you to the Preservation Association of Lincoln and Ryan Reed for suggesting this topic and assisting in the production of this episode.
Links to materials discussed in this episode:
LiDAR scanning of Robber’s Cave
On this episode we talk with John Rissetto, the State Environmental Coordinator with the USDA-Farm Service Agency for Nebraska. He and Gus discuss the curious juxtaposition between protecting the old by leveraging the new, such as the use of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) in archeology and how it was used to find historic trails and buildings in Nebraska that are not discernible to the naked eye. Thank you to the Preservation Association of Lincoln and Ryan Reed for suggesting this topic and assisting in the production of this episode.
Links to materials discussed in this episode:
LiDAR scanning of Robber’s Cave
Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and has not been thoroughly reviewed for completeness or accuracy.
[00:00:00] Gus Herwitz: This is Tech Refactored. I'm your host, Gus Herwitz, the Menard Director of the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center at the University of Nebraska. Today we're joined by John Rissetto. John is the State Environmental Coordinator with the USDA Farm Service Agency for Nebraska. We will be discussing a curious juxtaposition between protecting the old by leveraging the new, the use of light detection and ranging or lidar in archeology, and how it has been used to find historic trails and buildings in Nebraska that are not discernible to the naked eye.
John, thanks for joining us on Tech Refactored.
[00:00:41] John Rissetto: Gus, my pleasure to be here.
[00:00:43] Gus Herwitz: So let, let's just start a bit, uh, by talking about, uh, your position and historic preservation, the role of the government, uh, in it, and, uh, all of that good stuff. I, I guess I'm going to ask this in a more direct way. Uh, can you tell us who you are, what you do?
[00:00:59] John Rissetto: [00:01:00] dMy name is John Roseto and my current position is State Environmental Coordinator for the USD- USDA Farm Service Agency. And what I do is since the USDA Farm Service Agency is a federal agency, they are required to take into account the environment and cultural resources when they are conducting a project, whether it's either through funding, licensing, or permitting,
each federal agency needs to make sure that they take into account both of those things when they're thinking about working with or using their resources for a project. And so what I do in sort of layman's terms is I just make sure that any FSA project won't impact an archeological site or the environment.
And pretty much that's it. And that's sort of plain and simple. And so what I do is. Somebody will walk into the county office in throughout Nebraska and they'll fill out an application to [00:02:00] build a grain bin or to fill to build a cafo. And what they will do is they will then send all that information to me and I will review it based on the various aspects of looking at.
Wetlands and flood plains and archeological resource materials that we may have and make a determination whether that project is not going to impact the environment or cultural resources, or it will and, and if I think that it will, what I'll do then is send it out to consulting parties, which are other federal agencies or state agencies and tribal agencies, and ask them to.
on the project, and so what we're really trying to do is to create. Sort of a, a group of, of sort of eyes who are looking at this project in addition to my own, to assess whether this project is gonna have a potential impact. And if it does, we sort of move into what's called the mitigation or the discussion phase where we'll all [00:03:00] get around a table and with the applicant as well as the other outside parties.
And we'll have a discussion about what we would like to do to deal with any potential issues that could impact the environment or archeology. And then Devi a strategy for how to deal with not only figuring out ways to sort of preserve or excavate or move the project itself so it doesn't impact it or figuring out whether the project is not viable based on its level of impact.
[00:03:30] Gus Herwitz: Can- can you, uh, uh, give us some examples, uh, perhaps of, uh, the, the sort of concerns that may come up when you're evaluating a typical.
[00:03:38] John Rissetto: The, the easiest ones would be somebody wants to put a grain bin or a CAFO, which is a concentrated animal feed operation on top of an archeological site. And so a thousand years ago, there was a group of Native Americans who lived in this location.
They created teepee rings and fire pits, and they, [00:04:00] uh, used stone tools and then they left all that stuff. And then a thousand years later, somebody wants to build a building on top of it. And what our job would be would be to evaluate whether there's a way for us to have the applicant build their buildings maybe somewhere else so that that archeological site could either be sort of left in the ground and untouched.
or whether it would need to be excavated in order for us to be able to analyze whether that archeological site is different from any of the other archeological sites that we have in the area.
[00:04:32] Gus Herwitz: And is the purpose, or I'll just ask you what, what is the, uh, the purpose of the archeological
[00:04:38] John Rissetto: preservation? So the, the importance behind evaluating whether a project is going to impact archeology is to make sure that we are not impacting.
A resource that is not able to be identified or not able to be found somewhere else. And so really we're looking at unique [00:05:00] places and we're looking at sort of a unique concentration of material culture that helps us better understand the people who put that culture there. So when
[00:05:10] Gus Herwitz: we're, uh, uh, looking at or when you're looking at a, uh, proposed, um, project.
What sort of things are you looking for and what sort of remedies? Uh, uh, I'm obviously a lawyer. I use terms like remedies. Are you thinking about, is the, is the goal preservation, which I guess would largely mean you can't build here, or is it facilitating research and knowledge? So perhaps you bring in an ex, a team of experts to uh, uh, survey the area, learn from it.
Um, and then once it's been documented, uh, can the project move forward?
[00:05:42] John Rissetto: It's, it's, honestly, it's all of the above because the first, in, in, in sort of my interpretation of it, the first thing that we can do is try to avoid it. Because ultimately by avoiding having to dig something up, once you've put that shovel in [00:06:00] the ground, it is our obligation to make sure that we deal with uncovering that information and then analyzing that information and studying that information for the future.
So the first thing that I would think about is, is, is trying to figure out ways. How do we avoid the situation altogether? Can we just move the project from one location to another? And in a lot of cases, you know that really can't be done if you're gonna build a bridge from point A to point B. It's really hard to sort of move those footings of that bridge in a large geographic area that that just to avoid an archeological site.
And so once the archeological site is identified, part of the Fed regulation that's associated. The national. Preservation act, which is the NHPA, is the idea of that. Once you've identified it, you have to deal with it. Like you touch it, you, you break it, you buy it. That kind of situation. And so once we get to that stage where we've [00:07:00] identified it, if we cannot move the footings of those bridge of that bridge, we then have to excavate a portion of that site in order to be able to learn.
The information that's there. And unfortunately, that takes time and it takes money and it takes patience on all of the, the various consulting parties and sort of the groups that are associated with that project will need to have to deal with that issue. And, and that's sort of where the sticking point is, and a lot of these situations is that time is money.
And, and oftentimes you're dealing with a situation where you really. To do the best by the materials that you found, but also, you know, which are sort of representative of the past people who live there. But you also need to be able to balance that with the progress of being able to have that bridge built to serve all those people who are gonna cross that bridge.
And so part of the federal compliance process is [00:08:00] really trying to figure out a way to balance those. Sort of oftentimes competing populations.
[00:08:06] Gus Herwitz: So you, uh, work for the USDA, so you're on the federal government side, but you work in Nebraska and with the state, and I imagine that you have other private entities that you work with, both in partnership, you've mentioned bringing.
And consultants, I assume there are, uh, private consultants and also university academic consultants who work on many of these projects. And also for that matter, I expect many of the projects that you're helping to evaluate might have a private investment or construction, uh, element. So there's a, a whole lot of people coming to work together in this process.
Can you tell me a, a bit about the, the role of the state and private parties in this activity?
[00:08:48] John Rissetto: Sure. When, when a federal project is, is sort of being moved through when, when federal money is involved in. [00:09:00] The funding, licensing or permitting of a project, the everybody will sort of, you know, move to the table to discuss all of the various issues associated with the project, the amount of funding that they'll need, the number of permits that they'll be required, sort of all of the permission from the landowners in order to be able to either buy the property or potentially use them in a domain to do it.
All of these issues, Extremely complicated in some cases, depending on the size and the scope of the project. But what the most important part about it is, is that it's trying to give everybody a voice, and it's trying to give a voice to people who either are for the project or against the project and, and the fact that once federal money becomes.
It requires everyone to sort of follow this what's called the section 1 0 6 process, where once the project in is, is sort of initiated. [00:10:00] Everybody's able to sit at the table, have the conversation, and then figure out solutions to potential problems. You know, fingers crossed there are no problems. There are no direct impacts to the environment.
There are no adverse effects to cultural resources, and, and the project can move. Unabated. But when you do have situations, you know the Keystone XL Pipeline, you have the R project in, in central Nebraska, there are various examples where these parties at the table, Have very conflicting views of what impact is and how impact should be mitigated.
And, and this is really the role of, of sort of at the national level where you have other aspects or other, uh, groups within the agencies. Who will be part of that bigger conversation because now you're dealing with sort of the national level of, of sort of resources that need to come to bear to [00:11:00] create a solution that, you know, everybody is equally frustrated with versus, you know, everybody being happy.
Because, you know, as much as we would love to make everybody happy, really at a negotiation table, everybody needs to. Feel the pain equally to be, to really have a, a positive solution.
[00:11:19] Gus Herwitz: And your work is mostly governed by federal law, the Antiquities Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act. Are there, uh, counterpart agencies or counterpart laws, uh, here in Nebraska or other states?
[00:11:34] John Rissetto: They, the bigger ones are nepa, which is the big one, which is the National Environmental Policy Act, and there's also the Clean Air and Water Act. There's also the Endangered Species Act, and each federal agency has sort of a person or a division. Within that agency that deals with making sure that these policies, these environmental policies are, are taken into [00:12:00] consideration with respects to their projects.
And so at the national level, since everything is a federal project and, and, and section 1 0 6 and all of these federal regulations come into play, only when there's federal money licensing or permitting involved it. Sort of stops with them at the state level. And in some states they do have sort of a statewide historic preservation act, which is sort of a buff, which is a benefit to the, the federal laws.
But in Nebraska, there, there sort of is no state historic preservation law. So that it, it then creates a situation where if it's not covered under the federal law, it doesn't have to be abided. In the state law
[00:12:45] Gus Herwitz: with apologies to the PhD archeologist on the call. That is you let, let's do some, uh, uh, archeology of modern archeology tools.
Can, can you talk a bit about how the tools that you use in preservation have [00:13:00] changed over the years, and in, in particular, uh, how, how the technologies that you might use
[00:13:05] John Rissetto: have changed? This is, Part of the exciting part of the job where what we are sort of limited to is our own imagination of what we can do to better not only identify, but also record and preserve all of these, whether it be buildings, whether it be structures, or whether it be archeological sites.
We can use technology that's available to us today to be able. Better record what we're finding so that we can preserve it for the future, but also we can analyze it in the present. And one of those things is lidar. And LIDAR really has been sort of the best tool that we have at our disposal at the moment.
To help us identify the locations of archeological sites, because at the moment, what we need [00:14:00] to be able to do, especially with sort of the rate in which, you know, people are expanding outside of the cities into suburbs and the development. Sort of is continuing. What we wanna do, especially if there's a federal tie-in, is to be able to identify sites before it, the project really gets going so that we can route around those pro, we can route around those sites.
And LIDAR is a wonderful tool to do that because what it's doing is, you know, it. The lack of a very unscientific definition is that it's an inter instrument that's either on a satellite, an airplane, or on a tripod, and what it does is it shoots out. A laser that then is able to sort of provide a contour of the, of the ground surface or the surface that it's being, that the laser is hitting.
And what that does is that it creates an extremely accurate representation [00:15:00] of that surface that can be filtered for that can, that you can filter various elevations out to where you can you. Uh, eliminate the trees, for example, or vegetation that's above the surface in order to be able to get a clear picture of the ground surface itself.
And the best example of this. Would be in, in sort of the Maya region in Central and in Central America where Lidar is being used to identify Maya Temples and Maya cities and National Geographics has done wonderful work in the last few years, sort of showing this in the magazines where you are able to, Demonstrate its ability to, in high definition, sort of reconstruct and identify these Maya cities that were lost in the jungle, and the fact that Lidar is being able to shoot the lasers through the tree line, and being able to identify these changes in topography at high [00:16:00] definitions when you're able to sort of process the data.
It gives you a pretty clear indication that, you know, here are walls, here's a plaza, here's a temple. And one of the interesting cases where LIDAR has been used in Nebraska in the field is over at ized station. Ized station in the 1850s and 1860s was used as a pony express outpost, but it was also a way station for people who were traveling the overland Trail to the west And.
This location, what we were able to do with the LIDAR in, in Keith County where ized station is located is get a 3D representation of the outline of the station building itself. And so they were able to identify. In high definition, sort of the outlines of the building and outlines of the rooms inside the building.
And they were also able to identify other areas outside of that building [00:17:00] area that also may be archeologically related. Whether they be trash pits or whether they be, you know, holes that were dug for pit houses, for example, if for storage. All of these things could then be ground truth by sending archeologists out there to look at those places to see if there's anything.
But the real benefit, especially from a regulatory perspective, is that if they wanted to widen the road, for example, we would know that that location is there. We would have a very good indication that there may be other archeology areas around it, and that people who were planning the location of that road.
Could then put it somewhere else that potentially wouldn't be impacting it. We are talking with, uh,
[00:17:43] Gus Herwitz: John Rissetto of the USDA farm service agency about archeological preservation and the role of technology, uh, in preservation efforts. Uh, we will be back in a moment to continue our discussion, talk about some more examples and a bit more about the [00:18:00] technologies that, uh, are coming to define the tools of his.
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[00:18:51] Gus Herwitz: As we're coming back from our break, I want to take a moment to remind our listeners that we enjoy hearing from you. You can submit any ideas that you have [00:19:00] for topics, uh, for, uh, future episodes of Tech Refactored on our website, or you can tweet to us at UNL underscore NGTC or directly to me, your host, at at Gus Herwitz.
So we, uh, were just talking with John Rissetto from the USDA Farm Service Agency, um, about, uh, the growing use of lidar. Um, and you, you gave the example of, uh, the applications, uh, in South America and we'll, we'll post a link to some of these visualizations in some. Stuff that you can see. It's really cool as, uh, you were describing John, you, you can look at a map and see this is rainforest.
It's just a massive canopy of trees, and then suddenly you're erasing the trees and seeing the ground, and you just dig layer by layer by layer, and you start to see the outlines of structures and, uh, cities come into focus and it, it's amazing, uh, what the, the technology can do, put putting on. Evil [00:20:00] developer.
I want to build lots of stuff hat I, I hear the discussion of this technology and I immediately think, this sounds terrible. Uh, the, the preservationists are going to be able to find so much more that I'm going to have to deal with as a builder. Um, But then I start thinking, this actually could be really useful because you're finding so much more before I get to the site and put shovel to the ground so I know before I actually start digging where there are likely to be sites I'm going to need to take account of.
Is that intuition that this is beneficial for, uh, uh, development interests? Correct. How, how has the, um, development community, uh, responded to these technologies?
[00:20:46] John Rissetto: The, the development community is, is coming around to the idea of. Accepting the fact that there are limitations to what they are able to [00:21:00] do.
And this is the caveat is when there is federal money involved or federal permits or licensing involved, and, and that's really the difference is that in the United States private property laws allow the owners of that property to do pretty much anything They. With the materials or goods that are found on the site, Save for human remains.
Once they're human remains, all bets are off. And you gotta call the, the medical examiner and you gotta get people involved and it, it becomes very complicated. But you know, if you have an archeological site on your property, By definition, that is your property and you are able to do what you want with it.
However, if you want to receive federal funding to build a grain bin, for example, on your property, and you wanna put that grain bin, On an archeological site, it is the federal government's responsibility to make sure that that archeological site [00:22:00] is dealt with as part of the project. And, and so in my opinion and in and in my conversations when I was preservation archeologist at the State Historic Preservation Office here in Nebraska, it was, it was nice to hear developers and.
People and contractors becoming more aware of the fact that archeology and the natural environment is, are things that they need to keep in mind when they are developing it. And so I think it's just a matter of time as the ability to access these resources, such as lidar, for example, becomes. Prevalent.
Think of Google Earth, for example, as the, the fact that Google Earth has become so ubiquitous in the way in which we not only, you know, find, uh, things to do or be able to visit places around the world and see them in high definition. It's just a [00:23:00] matter of time before there's a layer, there's a lidar. On Google Earth that allows people to be able to identify sort of what's under the ground and what's underneath that tree or what's underneath that canopy, that tree canopy.
And I think that by planning better and having more tools at, at the disposal of not only the archeologists and the fed regulators and the environmental state, environmental coordinators and the contractors, Everything becomes more efficient, more streamlined, more economical because you are not wasting time, energy, and money having to deal with the issues, the unforeseen issues.
And that's, you know, since the beginning of, of federal regulation, you know, with the National Historic Preservation Act, once it was realized that contractors had, and developers had to deal with the [00:24:00] unknown. That then that was sort of the bone of contention that they had to deal with. And, and the difficulty is, is that we are thankfully now being able to move towards more of a conversational style because they know the regulations there and they know that we have to be part of the conversation and that it's, it behooves them to figure out ways to do things faster.
Which means figuring out whether there's archeological sites there or whether there's, you know, an issue with the topography where, you know, uh, waters of the United States or a flood plane or a wetland is gonna be impacted by their project. And it's easier for them to plan around it than to just sort of fight people against it.
Mm-hmm. . So
[00:24:46] Gus Herwitz: I, I've got no idea if the question I'm about to ask is deep or just absolutely vapid, but, uh, I'm going to ask it anyhow. Um, hoping that it's deeply philosophical that. The cornerstone of [00:25:00] historic preservation is literally historic preservation, roughly translated to the preservation of old stuff.
When does new stuff become old stuff? The Lincoln, Nebraska were 150 or so years old. At some point, buildings that were built within the current lifetime of residents of Lincoln will they start to be so old that we're going to be talking. Preserving them. And from the perspective of today and historic preservation today, looking to the future, how does this affect what we should be thinking
[00:25:35] John Rissetto: about today based on, uh, on federal, Federal law?
It's anything older than 50 years. So you think of it that way, and it's a sliding scale because every. Something is 50 years old, something has a birthday where it becomes 50 years old and then must be considered during or part of a federal project. And [00:26:00] that's, it's a very, it's a, it's a low bar for the most part, but at the same time, it's one of these things that is, is important because as we move forward, the idea of of historic preservation requires us to.
Find ways. To identify ourselves and to attach ourselves to the history of a place. And so if you think about it, the way in which sort of people in Nebraska have have existed and coexisted within Nebraska over. It's, it's sort of it relatively young history. The fact that we have people moving out of small towns in Nebraska.
The question becomes what do we do about that from an economic development perspective? From a financial perspective, from a demographic perspective. And, and this is a big question that's happening in in Europe as well, is you have a lot of these small towns. [00:27:00] It's, it's really, they're populated by the older generation because the younger generations have moved to the cities.
And so what do we do in that situation and how does that affect our ability to identify as Nebraskans? And how does that affect our ability to sort of remember our history and, and sort of one. Way to think about it is imagine if you didn't know who your grandparents were and you didn't know where your grandparents came from, and you didn't know sort of how they lived their lives based on the stories that they told you because you didn't know them.
It would be it. You would have a very different perspective on yourself. You would have a very different perspective on where you came from. You would have a very different perspective on the way in which you interact with other people and, and by having a real link to that history. Whether it be through a building, whether it be through a place, whether it be through sort [00:28:00] of, uh, a, a place on the landscape, it really helps you center yourself as a way of being able to sort of self-identify and define yourself as we move forward, because this is, in my opinion, this is sort of the bigger existential question is, is, is sort of balancing that progress and preservation, but, but preservation, having to better define.
And make itself more relevant because the number of noises that will come from progress and the drumbeat of progress will drown out those stories that your grandparents told you. And it'll be interesting to sort of see. How we in the preservation community can better articulate the importance of preservation because what it ultimately provides us in a society, and that is, you know, that that's sort of the draw from, from an academic perspective, from an intellectual perspective, [00:29:00] but also from a very visceral perspective because you know where you grew up defines who you.
And who you are, and it also helps you build for the future. And, and with all that said, all of these things are changeable. You know, I grew up in Northern Virginia. I, you know, identify as somebody from the east coast, but now I live in Lincoln, Nebraska. And, and my, you know, identity is, is being built around the fact that I now live in Lincoln, Nebraska, and that becomes part of my identity.
But my identity also is rooted in where I came from and, and the more we can do that, the better in my. So
[00:29:44] Gus Herwitz: turning to, uh, a different, uh, topic, what, what's the relationship between preservation and recordation? And the, the, uh, question that I have here really is under what circumstances, [00:30:00] if ever do we say we're able to sufficiently record this site?
We're okay with it being built over. We've learned what we, uh, can, what we need to. We've recorded, we've preserved as much a sufficient amount, um, and progress is going to happen. So we're okay letting it
[00:30:19] John Rissetto: happen here. It, in my opinion, it, it boils down to context and it boils down to what we know about the situation or this site that we're dealing with, that we're trying to excavate.
And you know, one example would be is that if you are excavating a historic site and it's a barn and it's from the 1850s and we. Multiple historic barns from the 1850 that are of this size. If you're looking at it from a foundation perspective, because you, the ha the barn has been torn down, all you have left is the foundation and you have sort of the interior posts [00:31:00] and maybe a sort of an auxiliary room, for example.
What are we, what else are we going to gain from a knowledge perspective about that? And, and that really becomes part of the analytical question that's being asked as the conversation as everybody is sitting around that, that, that table for making who are making decisions about what to do next with regards to this project.
And so honestly, it becomes a question of. Well, how much do we know about Historic Barnes from the 1850s? How much do we know about the people who built these styles of Barnes? And do we have other examples of those barns in other places that are better preserved where maybe they're still standing and, and that is a better representation And so context, whether it be.
The immediate context of the location or the broader context of what else do we know about it, sort of helps inform on making that decision [00:32:00] of when is enough, enough. And when can we move on with that? So we,
[00:32:04] Gus Herwitz: we have to talk about a well known project that you were, uh, involved in, uh, here in Nebraska. I, I will say, I think three years ago, it's hard to tell, It's hard to remember with, uh, the pandemic.
But for my birthday, uh, we went and visited for the first time Robert's Cave. So, uh, can, can you, I'll just ask, uh, can you tell us the, the story of Roberts Cave and, uh, uh, the projects that you, uh, uh, played a helping hand in?
[00:32:31] John Rissetto: I, I absolutely, I, I will definitely begin my very rudimentary explanation by prefacing that Joel Green, who is the, the tour guide for Roberts Cave, has literally wrote the book on Roberts Cave.
And, and if you have an interest in, in either visiting the cave or learning more about it, I would definitely. Uh, recommend that you search out the book, or Joel, I think he's got a link to his website where you can [00:33:00] book a tour. But Roberts Cave was originally, uh, natural sandstone cave that was hollowed out about in the late 18 hundreds by European immigrants who needed more room to, for beer making, and so that they hollowed out the cave in order for them to.
Thick preserve grain or to for use it to store barrels. But they needed a climate controlled condition and, and sort of the geology was perfect for them to be able to sort of extend this natural cave into an artificial cave. And after that it was owned by a family who. Allowed people to sort of rent it out for various, uh, types of parties and events.
And then I think it fell out of private hands and was just used by people as a gathering spot where what they would do when they were there was to engrave their names in the soft sandstone or to draw a picture in that [00:34:00] soft sandstone and leave it as a new social space where people would go and hang.
And do either various things, whether they would hang out and and with their friends or whether they have a big party. It was definitely an event space sort of. Directly end indirectly. And, and now what? What is, what we've done is we've listed that location on what's called the National Register of Historic Places, and that denotes locations or objects or buildings or sites within the United States that are worth.
Preserving and the idea is, is that these locations on the national Register are places where people should visit or see because they represent the best of the best for the lack of better terms with regards to the unique character or architectural construction or archeological significance. And, And one of [00:35:00] the big questions when what you do is you apply for your building to be listed on the national register.
You fill out a nomination through the Nebraska State Historic Preservation Office. There's a National register coordinator At the time, his name was David Kise and he. Uh, was, was sort, he mentioned to me when we worked in the same office that, Hey, I'm gonna go visit this cave that's got cave paintings.
And I was like, Wait, what? And I was like, In Nebraska, because ironically enough, my dissertation, my archeological dissertation was on hunter gatherers who made the painted caves in alt era in northern Spain. So did the famous painted caves with the bison and the. Ha having been to Roberts Cave. Exact same thing, right?
It's same thing. That's exactly what I was thinking. I was like, how did paleo people come over 15,000 years ago and make painted caves in Nebraska? Who knows? But I was gamed to go and visit and we, and I went with him and, and [00:36:00] was immediately struck by the, the, the sheer number. And the sheer quantity and, and the sheer density of information that was being transmitted on those walls.
And it was, it was really fascinating and, and sort of being able to put myself back in the shoes of my younger archeological days working in northern Spain and visiting these cave, these types of caves that dated back 15,000 years and now seeing the same type of representations. In this cave in Nebraska that was done between, you know, the 19 hundreds or, you know, early 19 hundreds all the way to, you know, 2010.
It was fascinating to sort of see. The fact that humanity is not that different, it just really repeats itself. And so the big question was how do we represent all of this information in [00:37:00] in, in some sort of pictographic? Form that we could use in the nomination process. And, and the, the first question was, well, would it take a bunch of photos of it and, and that should do it.
And in my opinion and in the opinion of, of the other people in the nomination, Uh, group who was Matt Hanson, who works at the Nebraska State Capital, was in charge of writing the nomination. And Joel Green, who's the tour director, he was part of it as well. And then David Kise and, and myself. We thought about the fact that, hey, we should really use Lidar to do this, and Lidar would be able to give us that level of detail of all of this information.
To not only preserve it for the nomination and included in the nomination, but preserve it for the future. So as this soft sandstone begins to naturally degrade, We will still have this opportunity to sort of be able to visit Roberts Cave in [00:38:00] a virtual format that will be able to provide the information and in some case, you know, the experience of being there.
And so it was really a great opportunity that we partnered with Richard Wood, who's at, uh, the universities and the College of Engineering, and he and some of his students came out and were able to use. A Lidar machine set on top of a tripod and create a three dimensional image of Robert's Cave that is available.
And, and I don't know if you'll post a link, but we have a link that that will allow you to be able to sort of see it and maneuver yourself around the three dimensional diagram that was created. And it really was, uh, a sort of a, one of a kind opportunity as well as a one of a kind situation where I don't think, and, and you know, David could sort of speak to this better, is that I don't think that there were other, there have been any [00:39:00] other nominations, national register nominations that have included sort of a.
LIDAR based 3D scan of the building or of the structure itself. And so it's sort of one of a kind and it, and it sort of bridges that gap between the importance of preservation but also and, and progress, but also at the same time promotion. Because really what you're trying to do is you're trying to provide access to people to be able to participate in the preservation process and the benefits of preservation too.
And, and being able to create the 3D LIDAR scan of Roberts Cave was, was sort of a wonderful representation of all of the these things coming together. And, and sort of establishing the benefits of what we can do going forward. And I, and I think that, in my opinion, as, as sort of from a, a cost benefit analysis and then as a price point and [00:40:00] access issues become resolved, you'll really begin to see this type of detail.
More readily available. You know, outside of, outside of the real estate market, which is where you see it now, when when you go to buy a house, sometimes, depending on the house, and depending on the realtor, you'll find a 3D virtual walkthrough of the house. And what we've done is created that for Roberts Cave, but we've created it from a preservation perspective versus a, I need to sell my house perspective.
Well, I, I think that's a,
[00:40:36] Gus Herwitz: uh, perfect capstone to our entire discussion. Uh, this show is Tech Refactored in the, the Gov Technology and Governance Center. What we, we study is how technology and regulation work together or at odds sometimes to affect society and so much of modern. Technology is about information and getting information into people's hands and finding new ways [00:41:00] to store it and record it and share it, and the effects that massive amounts of information have on society and individual decision making and all sorts of stuff like that.
And fundamentally, you are in the business of. Creating or preserving information and getting it into, uh, a productive use. Whe when we're talking about historic preservation, some of my questions were framed, Is this anti-progress? Well, no, th this is, you're creating information, you are getting information out there, and that's a, a progressive sort of use of technology to get knowledge into the information ecosystem.
Uh, so the, the combination. Lidar and preservation of Roberts Cave, uh, and, uh, uh, Mayan ruins and all these other things. It's a, a great case study of, uh, yet another form of information and its important role in society and, uh, how we use it. So thank you, uh, John for taking the time. And, uh, thank you listeners for joining us.
I've been your host, [00:42:00] Gus Herwitz. Uh, thank you for joining us on this episode of Tech Refactored. If you want to learn more about what we're doing here at the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center, or you want to submit an idea for a future episode of Tech Refactored, you can go to our website at ngtc.unl.edu, or you can follow us on Twitter at UNL underscore NGTC.
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Until next time, keep looking forward to understand the past.[00:43:00]