Labs, Spaces and Resources
The department supports research focused on the collection, investigation, and analysis of a wide range of archaeological material and data.
The Archaeology Lab serves as a central space for archaeological practices, including the conservation, analysis, processing, and identification of finds and materials. The lab is equipped for advanced digital techniques such as:
- 3D reconstructions, recordings, and analysis using photogrammetry
- Gaming technologies,
- Geographical information systems (GIS)
- Computed tomography (CT Scan) data
Our Geotechnical and Geospatial Survey Equipment allows for detailed landscape investigation and analysis including high precision GNSS units and geophysical survey equipment. This includes an extensive collection of traditional manual surveying instruments, and state-of-the-art aerial survey equipment, and even laser scanning equipment for buildings and objects (with the University’s Special Collections).
It provides practical training in the basics of archaeological science, museum practices, and the analysis of land and landscapes.
Contacts: Prof. Mark Gillings , Prof. Stuart Prior , Dr Alex Birkett
The Department of Anthropology and Archaeology Collections (DAAC) is the departmental museum of the University of Bristol, formally established in 2024. It is governed by the Department and managed by the Collections Manager.
The museum exists for the public benefit, advancing education and research in archaeology and anthropology, with a primary focus on Bristol and the surrounding counties. The collections comprise over 1,100 boxes of material. The majority consists of human remains, alongside archaeological assemblages from departmental excavations (including Royal Fort Gardens), donations such as the Blandford Bequest, and smaller holdings of documentary and environmental material. The collections are embedded within teaching and research, with students contributing to their care, documentation, and development as part of structured curatorial roles and are overseen by Alex Birkett as Collections Manager.
The museum operates in accordance with its Collections Development Policy (Report 2024/03), which defines its statement of purpose, collecting priorities, acquisition procedures, and disposal framework. All collections management procedures are structured around SPECTRUM standards, and the Department is progressing towards Museum Accreditation.
Access and Enquiries
Enquiries regarding research access, visits, loans, or donations contact the Archaeology Museum.
The department contains facilities for the preparation and molecular analysis of bioarchaeological remains, including pottery lipids, bones and teeth.
We have a sample preparation laboratory, a wet chemistry laboratory and a range of instrumentation, including:
- Agilent 6890 gas chromatograph
- ThermoFinnegan single-quadrupole gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer
- ThermoFinnegan Flash 1112 series elemental analyser for the measurement of bulk δ13C and δ15N isotope ratios.
We work closely with the Organic Geochemistry Unit in the School of Chemistry, which hosts the Bristol node of the NERC National Environmental Isotopes Facility (NEIF), and houses a suite of cutting-edge analytical instrumentation, including for compound-specific stable light isotope analysis and high resolution gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.
In addition to postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers and academic staff, our undergraduate students, and interns from UoB and beyond, conduct research in these laboratories.
We conduct research on the molecular fingerprints of organic traces surviving in the archaeological record, such as invisible traces of foods absorbed into the fabric of pottery dating back thousands of years, or the isotopic composition of human and animal bones and teeth.
These approaches lend unique insight into past dietary and subsistence strategies and environments. This allows us to ask tackle questions about the nature of the earliest farming in Britain 6000 years ago, through to past cultural and religious food-related practices. For further information on the principles and best practice of organic residue analysis, see our freely-available guidance booklet commissioned by Historic England.
Contact: Dr Lucy Cramp
The state-of-the-art Bristol Radiocarbon Mass Spectrometry Facility (BRAMS), run by the School of Chemistry, is based in our department, and integrated with our Archaeological Chemistry Laboratory.
The MICADAS accelerator mass spectrometer is a high-precision and compact instrument that is capable of measuring radiocarbon dates on even the tiniest of samples. It can analyse samples as both graphite targets and CO2 gas, with applications ranging from archaeology through to palaeoclimatology, past and present environmental studies, and geosciences.
It is in these laboratories that the methodology to date preserved lipid (fat/oil) molecules captured in the walls of archaeological vessels was pioneered, enabling direct, accurate and reliable dating of ceramic use to be established.
This facility forms the basis of important research programmes in the department and beyond, including Lucy Cramp’s Seascapes project, a major radiocarbon dating programme to trace the emergence and dynamics of early Bell Beaker maritime connectivity in the Mediterranean Copper Age through the dating of pottery lipids, and other short-lived archaeological samples.
Contact: Dr Tim Knowles, Research Fellow and Facility manager
Members of the Evolution of Cross-Cultural Diversity Lab work to make cultural and linguistic data systematic and openly available for comparative research. Since 2015, lab members have had funding from the European Research Council, Leverhulme Trust, US National Science Foundation, the Max Planck Society, and the British Academy to create data and methods resources.
Databases include:
- D-PLACE: A Database of People, Languages, Culture, and Environment
- CHIELD: The Causal Hypotheses in Evolutionary Linguistics Database
- KINBANK: Global Database of Kinship Terminology
Methodological field-kits open on the Open Science Framework:
- VARIKIN-Development: A Toolkit for Investigating Children's Acquisition of Kinship Concepts
In coming years these resources will include datasets on the world’s numeral systems (Numeralbank, as part of QUANTA) and ethnobotanical datasets from Nordic People and Plants.
Contact: Professor Fiona Jordan
The labs and equipment are integral to:
- undergraduate and postgraduate education
- postgraduate research
- collaborative research
- continued professional development
They provide practical training in the basics of archaeological science, museum practices, and the analysis of land and landscapes.