The Virtual Environments for Research in Archaeology (VERA) project aims to produce a fully-fledged virtual research environment for the archaeological community. It will address user needs, enhancing the means of efficiently documenting archaeological excavation and its associated finds, and create a suitable Web portal that provides enhanced tools for the user community. VERA aims to develop utilities that help encapsulate the working practices of current research archaeologists unfamiliar with virtual research environments.

Virtual Environments for Research in Archaeology


Start date: 1 March 2007

End date: 31 March 2009

Funding programme: Virtual Research Environment programme

Project website: http://vera.rdg.ac.uk/index.php

JISC theme(s): e-Research

Committees: JISC Content Services Committee

The Virtual Environments for Research in Archaeology project builds on the successful JISC VRE 1 project, Silchester 'Town Life a research and training excavation of one part of the large Roman town at Silchester. The Silchester excavation aims to trace the site's development from its origins before the Roman Conquest to its abandonment in the fifth century A.D. The rich and complex finds from the excavation provide the material to populate the research environment, and a working site to investigate the use of advanced Information Technology in an archaeological context.

Regular updates regarding the project will be posted on the VERA blog VERA Blog RSS Feed. If you are an archaeologist, and would like to get involved with the project, providing us feedback and user comments, please contact us using the online form. You may also wish to sign up to the vera-announce discussion list about the project, where announcements will be posted.

Lead institutions