Not much can be said with certainty about the hogback. They are early-medieval monuments found across northern England and southern Scotland, with the largest being found here, in Govan, Glasgow. But why were they made? By whom? What do they represent? Supposedly they are of Scandinavian heritage, yet there are no examples in Scandinavia; presumably they are funerary monuments but without human remains; they are carefully designed yet of unclear archetype. With no definite answers, not only were these puzzles intriguing to the Govan Pebbles team, but they also highlighted the challenge of conveying archaeological uncertainty to the public.

We created an interactive visualisation in Unity to address these issues, where we introduced the hogbacks and presented three theories of what they might represent, employing a mixed-media approach of 3D models, videos, text, and audio. The user is asked to employ critical thinking to choose between these, illustrating the open-ended nature of archaeological research. The visualisation finishes with a video discussion of what this uncertainty means for archaeology at Govan and beyond and therefore, we simultaneously address the fascination of the stones and the deeper question of what it means to ‘know’ in archaeology.