Archaeologists are unearthing a long forgotten chapter in Western Australia's colonial history at an isolated site 400 kilometres north of Perth.

Ceramics, buttons and a hand-cut mother of pearl decorative piece are some of the treasures, believed to be from the 19th century, so far plucked from ruins on the Greenough flats.

But archaeologists have been looking for more than treasure; they are painstakingly examining the buildings - their foundations and surrounds - to gather a more complete history of the structures and the people who passed through them.

"We really want to know what it was like for the early settlers to come in here, into this isolated place, to start afresh," said Melissa Hetherington.

"[To] try to make a life for themselves and their families on this new land."

A hand cut mother of pearl decorative piece unearthed at the Temperance Lodge. ( Supplied: Melissa Hetherington )

Ms Hetherington is leading a team of archaeologists to excavate two of more than a dozen buildings in the district that can be traced back to British colonisation.

The PhD candidate is focussing on a bold entrepreneur, Henry Gray, who travelled to the Greenough flats and started the first significant store in the area in 1860.

"I think Gray's Store played an absolutely crucial role to the development of this settlement in Greenough," Ms Hetherington said.

"It would have provided kitchen goods and furniture, clothing, various knick-knacks, ceramics.

"All the things that people would need but would have a lot of trouble bringing up or transporting themselves if they didn't have very much money."

Dig could lead to virtual tour of old settlement

The National Trust conserves 19 historic buildings within the Greenough settlement.

With help digital reconstruction expert Andrew Hutchison, the ruins of the area are being carefully photographed to be developed into a digital, three-dimensional model.

Ms Hetherington said she hoped that imagery could be developed to capture people's interest in the historic buildings, potentially through a virtual tour.

Images of the dig sites will be used to create 3D models. ( Supplied: Chris Lewis )

"We're going to use that to create an immersive, digital experience for people to go in there and actually have a look at what we think the building might have looked like when was being occupied," she said.

She said the digital reconstruction was an innovative way for archaeologists to share countless hours of research and information.

"For us to just write that down and store the items in the lab or in the museum, it doesn't bring the picture together as well as it does if you create a digital image for someone to just look at and immerse themselves in it," she said.

Excavations are also underway at Temperance Lodge, about 200 metres away from Gray's Store.

Digging through the soil under the roofless building, the team located remnants of the building's old floorboards and searched for items that had slipped between the cracks.

Hard life for early Mid-West pioneers

Researchers dig out parts of the Temperance Lodge ruins at Greenough. ( Supplied: Chris Lewis )

Research suggests the lodge was linked to the Temperance Movement after one of Henry Gray's sons, Charles, introduced it to the Greenough community following a business trip to Melbourne.

The movement swept through the colonial world in the 19th century as an ideological solution to try to curb drunkenness.

Ms Hetherington said research suggested Greenough was the first location in WA to introduce the more strict form of the movement, which required total abstinence of alcohol.

Spurred on by hopes of profitable farming, hundreds of early settlers and convicts flocked to Greenough in the 19th century.

But crop rust, floods and fires made life almost impossible in the area, and the population dropped off towards the end of the 1800s.

Ms Hetherington hopes her work will encourage people to appreciate the full history of the Greenough flats.

"That's what I'd like to see come out of this project; a greater awareness of Greenough, not just for tourism but also for our broader understanding of Western Australia's history," she said.

"And if that assists with our conservation plans for these buildings then that will be a fantastic outcome for the research."

The initial findings from the excavations will be published in a scientific journal later this year.