Archaeologists from the University of Bradford are heading to Stonehenge to help with the world’s biggest-ever virtual excavation.

The Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project, which began this week, will use the latest geophysical imaging techniques to visually recreate the prehistoric monument and its surroundings.

Bradford architects will be working with a team from the University of Birmingham to unlock the mysteries of Stonehenge and show people exactly what the local area looked like during the time the monument was created.

Dr Christopher Gaffney, lecturer in archaeological geophysics at the University of Bradford, said: “This is an incredibly exciting project to be part of.

“Rather than looking at typically small discrete areas we intend to cover the whole of the site. We will do this using emerging technology that allows us to pull large banks of sensors behind a quad bike and using real-time GPS to locate the measurements.

“No-one has collected this much data so rapidly before for an archaeological geophysical survey, and so we will need to research into new types of processing and visualisation.

“Bradford is regarded as the premier university centre in Britain for geophysical prospecting for archaeological remains, and this project will capture the imagination of not only our students but many people across Britain.”

The multi-million pound study has been funded by the new Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Vienna.

The project will bring together the most sophisticated geophysics team ever to be engaged in a single archaeological project in Britain, who will also be working alongside specialists in British prehistory and landscape archaeology in the three-year collaboration.

The millions of measurements taken may be incorporated into gaming technology to produce 2D and 3D images.