OTHER EYES: Understanding the past through bioarchaeology and digital media

"The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is...." -Marcel Proust

This research confronts an emerging issue within archaeology: that of interpreting past people using digital technology. For over 350-years scientists have sought to recreate the worlds inhabited by our human ancestors using drawings, models and dioramas. Using 21st century digital technology, we can now use DNA recovered from skeletal remains to make 3D digital avatars of past people.

But what benefits might this bring and what questions does it raise? How do we digitally reconstruct past people and does the authenticity matter? Does the ability to digitally embody a past person of a different age, sex, or with a disability change the way we think about the past?

Are there significant differences between traditional 2D illustrations, museum models, and 3D avatars in the representation and understanding of past people? What are the ethics of "resurrecting" past people based on bioarchaeological evidence and can (and should) reconstructions of past people be archived to encourage their creative reuse?

Other Eyes will construct life histories of past people--people who were profoundly different than we are but who can share their experiences through digital technology. This is novel, important research because bioarchaeological information has never been used to create an avatar-based immersive digital experience. Current research in other fields has shown that avatar-based immersion is incredibly impactful and increases cross-cultural empathy.

Other Eyes will allow users to interact as Roman-era people, based on human remains excavated in York. These human remains have shown that many past people experienced altered mobility, whereas reconstructions privilege a normative, able-bodied perspective. By creating avatars from bioarchaeological evidence we aim to fundamentally alter how academics and the general public understand and interpret the past.

Therefore the aim of Other Eyes is to better understand the experiences of past people using virtual embodiment and immersive technologies and to then communicate this understanding to others. To achieve this we will: 1. Review the history, context and ethics of reconstructing past people.

2. Investigate the digital embodiment of past people by creating avatars based on artefacts, burials, and other evidence. 3. Assess the capacity for reconstructions of past people to evoke empathetic responses from present people. 4. Develop best practices for the collection, storage and dissemination of data about past people.

Other Eyes will allow people to explore the diversity of the past through digital immersive technology, namely an augmented reality experience (XR) at the Yorkshire Museum. The Yorkshire Museums Trust have a strategic aim to develop digital engagement. As these skeletal remains have an array of impactful physical injuries and demonstrate the ethnic diversity of Roman Britain this will inform present understanding regarding disability and difference in the past.

This will allow the evaluation of XR in museums and among researchers. Results will be made available in open access journals, presented at academic conferences and in public talks. The XR will be made available online.

The examination of ethics in the use of representations of past individuals will be made available online and to the government. The potentially greater significance of this project is: (i) for archaeology to contribute meaningfully to the global discussion of what it means to be human amongst a growing array of digital media and (ii) to increase empathy with other individuals both past and present, understanding that there were different ways of living throughout time.