OAS 2021 Symposium
Session 1 - Archaeological Knowledge Production in the Age of Zoom
Paper 3 - Archaeology and Virtual Reality: A Critical Appraisal of Google Expeditions

Jaime Simons, Department of History, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON

Google Expeditions is an immersive education app that allows viewers to explore the world through augmented and virtual reality. Virtual tours from around the globe are available through the app and allow for both individuals and groups to follow along on a tour or explore at their own pace. While the subject matter of the tours is extremely varied, there are a significant number of archaeology-focused tours, mostly of excavated or reconstructed archaeological sites. Most tours are created by members of the public for casual consumption. As such, most were not subject to academic standards or analysis, though some tours do come from museum professionals showcasing their own museums or historic sites. This research explores the theoretical implications of the virtualization of Canadian archaeological
sites, both Indigenous and otherwise. It also addresses the appeal of the original versus the reproduction, how gaze and biases are captured within Google Expeditions, and how the virtualization of archaeological sites affects understandings of scale, impact, and context. Ownership regarding intellectual property (IP) protection will also be addressed, along with what it means to virtualize archaeological and cultural heritage sites on a Google-owned platform.