Virtual Avebury: exploring sense of place in a virtual archaeology simulation

Emerita Professor of Technology Enhanced Learning at the University of the West of England, Bristol and now practices as a private consultant in virtual heritage, working with creative partners and stakeholders to create virtual reality simulations of ancient and historical places. She is also a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at Bournemouth University. Her research expertise is in learning in immersive virtual environments and virtual worlds, majoring upon situated and contextual learning in immersive virtual environments to enhance our understanding of hidden or obscured heritage. Liz has led and taken part in research and consultancy grants from private industry and public bodies, including AHRC, EPSRC, HEA, HEFCE, Hewlett Packard and Royal Ordnance. She has over 30 years' experience as a lecturer, researcher, professor and manager in Higher Education and an established international publication record in the field of education technology research

Founded and owns Daden Limited. David has been involved in AI, VR and immersive environments since the 1990s and set up Daden Limited in 2004 to help organisations explore and exploit the social and commercial potential of using chatbots, AI and virtual environments. David and his team have delivered over 50 immersive learning and chatbot projects for clients across the globe. David has led collaborative research projects funded by InnovateUK and the MOD, and Daden have won prizes for their work in the UK and USA. David was a finalist in BCS’s Machine Intelligence competition, has authored over a dozen papers on virtual worlds and AI and recently published a book with Taylor & Francis New York on virtual humans.

National Trust Curator for the Alexander Keiller Museum at Avebury. As well as caring for and sharing the internationally significant musuem collections, Ros is a leading expert in Neolithic and Bronze Age pottery. She has published widely on Stonehenge and Avebury, burial and material cultures in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, and on the analysis of prehistoric pottery remains.

A Bristol-based context-aware media producer, declamatory poet, writer and artist. He is founder of Satsymph, specialists in mobile immersive media experiences incorporating highly innovative coding and spatialised audio, creating dramatized heritage-based audio-plays as well as contemporary music and contemporary poetry soundscapes. Ralph also writes scripts for the Heritage Industry for clients such as English Heritage, e.g. audio and ‘Peppers Ghosts’ scripts for the refurbishment of Dover Castle Great Tower. As a poet, Ralph specializes in large-scale declamatory public poems or epics in which a sense of place is integral to his work. This sense of place and interest in maps and mapping technologies are what ties in his work to immersive media scenarios.

An audio engineer, software developer and electronics engineer from Bristol in the UK. His work with Satsymph developing context-aware audio for smartphones is complementary to his research and lecturing at the University of the West of England. He is also a member of Dorkbot Bristol, promoting public interest in electronics/arts crossover through music and sound. He develops sonic art installations with software and electronics hardware. Phill is active as a sound/video artist with several full-length albums and synaesthetic short films published under the artist name Zenpho.

A doctoral researcher and former research assistant based in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at Bournemouth University. His doctoral research investigates the use of technology enhanced learning (TEL) in the teaching of Forensic Anthropology. He holds a first degree in dentistry together with a postgraduate qualification in forensic osteology and master’s degrees in both Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

Archaeologist for the Stonehenge and Avebury UNESCO World Heritage Site. Her principal research interests lie in the Neolithic and Bronze Age of southern Britain. She has a particular interest in landscape inhabitation and residence during the period, monumentality and ritual practice, and the interplay between the two. Nick has a longstanding interest in the use of lithic assemblages (including scatters) to inform our understanding of prehistoric landscape inhabitation.

Professor of Archaeological Sciences in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at Bournemouth University. Her primary research focus is the application of remote sensing techniques in an archaeological context. She is an experienced archaeological surveyor with expertise in topographical survey, geophysical prospection, GIS, and 3D scanning technology. She has directed a number of recent archaeological surveys on both prehistoric and historic landscapes in the UK and abroad. Recent research projects have included the Rapa Nui: Landscapes of Construction Project, the Songo Mnara: Urban Space, Social memory and Materiality Project, and Kate was a co-director of the AHRC-funded Stonehenge Riverside Project, working with the Universities of Sheffield, Manchester and Bristol, and UCL