UHI archaeologist Dr Emily Gal knows that history is never far away when you’re on Uist.
“As archaeologists, we look around and we know that a lot of these lumps and bumps are archaeology,” Dr Gal said.
But it’s often difficult for locals and visitors to engage with all that history without knowing where to look.
Enter: the Uist Virtual Archaeology Project and Uist Unearthed, which uses augmented reality to send users back thousands of years without going far beyond their doorstep.
In November, Dr Gal and her colleague Dr Rebecca Rennell from UHI Outer Hebrides Archaeology collected three awards for Uist Unearthed at the 2022 Archaeological Achievement Awards in Dublin.
Along with awards in Archaeological Innovation and Public Dissemination or Presentation, Uist Unearthed also took home the prestigious Outstanding Achievement Award for 2022.
It all started with an idea to get more locals exploring Uist and giving visitors a reason to spend more time off the beaten path, Dr Gal said.
“For people that aren’t archaeologists, we just wanted to highlight a wee bit more how busy these landscapes really are.”
But before all of that, there were the zombies.
Step into the past
During an excavation in Orkney, Dr Rennell noticed a few of her students entranced by a mobile game.
“It was an augmented reality game, where these zombies were popping up around the broch where they were excavating,” Dr Gal said, and it got Dr Rennell thinking about how the technology could be put to use in their own field.
Unlike virtual reality, which fully immerses users into a new space, augmented reality technology relies heavily on the real-life setting.
On Uist, much of the archaeology lies buried, unlike popular sites on Orkney and Shetland with more upstanding features and attractions.
Dr Gal said she and Dr Rennell wondered: If an app can make it look like zombies are shambling towards you through the hills, then why can’t it strip away the hills themselves and reveal what lies beneath?
“We had that idea floating around and when we combined it with these hidden landscapes that we wanted to reveal, it was a perfect fit.
“The technology gives us the opportunity to reach out to young people and a new audience.”
Using augmented reality, visitors to sites on Uist can see what early settlements might have looked like, and get the feeling of walking through ancient sites as they would have appeared centuries ago.
More to come in 2023
The Uist Virtual Archaeology Project began in January 2020, and the Uist Unearthed mobile app launched in January 2021.
The UHI researchers worked with developers at PEEL.X to create the groundbreaking app.
The genius of the app is in the variety of ways users can engage with sites in real-time.
While there’s plenty of text to read for those museum perfectionists who leave no placard unread, Uist Unearthed and the virtual archaeology project are about more than spreading information.
See Uist Unearthed for yourself
The real power in the app comes from loading it up on site and seeing what lies hidden right beneath your feet.
So if you want to see the full extent of what Uist Unearthed has to offer, you’ll have to get to the island, pull up the app and get exploring.
The project is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)’s Natural and Cultural Heritage Fund administered by NatureScot, with further support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, and Stòras Uibhist.
Users can explore sites on south Uist, but new sites on the north of the island are coming soon in 2023.
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