Immersive virtual reality for the fruition of ancient contexts: The case of the archaeological and Naturalistic Park of Santa Maria d'Agnano in Ostuni

The work presents Agnano RiVive, an immersive Virtual Reality application developed to be used within the Museum of Preclassical Civilizations of the Southern Murgia in Ostuni, which preserves the findings of the Archaeological and Naturalistic Park of Santa Maria di Agnano. The application gives the user the possibility to explore the Upper Paleolithic settlement and interact with the old manufacts. The goal is to conduct the user to assist in the burial ritual of Ostuni 1, the world's oldest mother found in this site. A fundamental element is the paleoenvironment representation made possible by archaeobotanical studies. User experience was evaluated by submitting the Presence Questionnaire to 25 users. The results showed high levels of Involvement and Visual/Audio Fidelity and a strong correlation between them. Starting from this preliminary work, we propose to expand language and content to make the application educational and attractive to all types of Museum visitors