Archaeologist from Southeast Asia here. I wonder if your question is, how do I become an archaeologist? Or how do I become a digital modeller? There’s no reason you can’t be both but it may come down to where you want your main training specialty to be in - archaeology or 3D modelling as that is where you will be investing a bulk of your technical skills in.

With the usual caveats of how academia is broken and the low-level of jobs out there, one way to go about it is to undertake training as an archaeologist and specialise in the 3D visualisation stuff. Make a name as being the person for doing the 3D visualisations, you’ll find that people will naturally come to you once you have a portfolio out there. Tinker, create stuff, put it online for people to see - all this done in the context of building a career, academic or otherwise. Those are the broad strokes

I have a web resource about virtual archaeological projects in Southeast Asia - yes, the virtual Angkor project is listed there and there are lots more in the region too, which may give you some inspiration. https://www.southeastasianarchaeology.com/virtual-archaeology/

The Virtual Angkor Project was the result of quite a unique set of circumstances. I’m not sure whether there is really a set career path that can allow you to become a historical modeller, but I can provide some information about the various disciplines that were involved in the project, as well as in Southeast Asian history more generally.

The Virtual Angkor Project was initiated by Dr. Thomas Chandler. Chandler graduated with a BA (Hons) in archaeology, but then went to work on design and 3D animation in the UK during the 90s dotcom boom. When the boom went bust, he returned to Australia but stopped over in Cambodia for 6 months or so where he became interested in Angkor. In Australia he thought he might enrol in a Masters by Research, something to do with 3D animation.

About a year later he thought perhaps he ought to do something related to animation and Angkor and started travelling to Cambodia regularly. At the same time, Sydney University had initiated the Greater Angkor project to study long-term habitation patterns in ‘greater’ Angkor (as opposed to just the Angkor Wat area). In the course of his research, Chandler met several students involved in the project who would eventually become his colleagues and would be able to supply much of the data upon which Virtual Angkor was built.

It took a couple more years before he thought of doing a 3D animation of Angkor, and when he did he enrolled in a PhD. programme at Monash, not in archaeology, but in information technology.

Thus, the initiator of the project comes from multiple disciplines, but much of his working and academic background is really in animation rather than archaeology. And if we look at the list of people credited on the Virtual Angkor website, there are 2 historians, 2 archaeologists, 2 ‘affiliated faculty’ and 5 people involved in design/animation. Apart from Chandler himself, the other 4 have gone on to careers in design/animation.

This also happens in projects like the Assassin’s Creed games or history documentaries - the project itself is initiated through a business decision. The full time staff tend to be people with the technical skills to actually produce the product like game designers, directors, animators etc. Then historians and archaeologists are brought on as consultants.

So, if you want to be a modeller, as in the guy who actually does the design work, you’re probably better off studying design and animation rather than archaeology or history!

On the relative value of archaeology vs history in Southeast Asian history, it really depends on the time period you’re studying.

A big part of History is the study of written records, and as we move into the colonial era, historians have more materials to study, including the chronicles of the various kingdoms and sultanates and European records. There are many historians studying this time period.

However, from the time of the Indianised kingdoms (very roughly 5th to 14th centuries), which produced massive stone structures like Angkor Wat and Borobudur, we don’t have a lot of written records. Most records were written on palm leaves which have not survived Southeast Asia’s climate. It thus falls to archaeologists to do most of the research, including the deciphering and analysis of inscriptions. The exception is the imperial Chinese records or accounts by Chinese travellers or officials which do contain many references to Southeast Asia. In the past, much of this research was done by Sinologists. In recent years, however, technology has made these records more accessible to Southeast Asian historians.

The Angkor Research Programme at the University of Sydney also illustrates this - of the 9 people on the team, 7 are archaeologists, 1 specialises in paleoenvironment and paleoclimate, and just 1 is a historian specialising in Chinese history and Southeast Asian connections.

Finally, I wrote to Dr. Chandler to see if he had any advice for you. I reproduce his reply here:

Thanks for getting in touch - it's very flattering to think that young scholars might see the virtual angkor project as a career objective!

I wish I could offer clear advice but to be honest I've done a lot of bumbling and 'open ended' development to get it thus far, and it's probably not even halfway done.

The short and boring answer is stamina, really, and choosing a place (like a medieval city) upon which to focus your efforts over the long term.

I often think of the archaeologists I trained under as an undergrad who would return to dig at the same site for most of their career; they'd be excavating through time, but in one place, so they'd naturally get to know it with some intimacy.

Technically, it helps if one has an interest in models and modelling; these are the elements from which any virtual world is made. We make these models in 3D, but the process is the same, in spirit, as the one followed by modellers who crafted historical wooden and plastic dioramas for museums back in the 1940s and 1950s (or indeed much earlier). Once you have enough evidence-based models - not just architecture but especially models of people, trees and animals - then your historial world will start to build itself.

Cheers

T

You can also listen to his interview with u/ShadowsofUtopia where he talks about the Virtual Angkor project here: https://youtu.be/rO-HPNeMVWs

If you know roughly the time period and specialisation you're interested in and you would like career advice, you might have better luck reaching out to Southeast Asian specialists, whether they’re based in Southeast Asia or otherwise. There are several from America who have settled in Southeast Asia (though from a different generation), and also a couple from Southeast Asia who have settled in America! Contact details are usually readily available on university websites, and if you email enough people I’m sure some will reply! Good luck!