The Bristol centre will be part of a network of projects announced today [Tuesday 1 October] as UKRI/AHRC launches its Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science (RICHeS) programme. The centre shares funding from the first tranche of a major £80million research and innovation investment that will support the latest technology and scientific instrumentation to safeguard heritage for future generations and will boost the UK’s heritage economy.
The University of Bristol has a long history of pioneering mass spectrometric methodologies for molecular and isotope analyses in the heritage sciences with world-leading expertise and infrastructure that spans and integrates three schools and two faculties: the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology in the School of Arts, the Organic Geochemistry Unit in the School of Chemistry and the Bristol Isotope Group housed in the School of Earth Sciences.
Facilities included under the centre umbrella include an ultra-compact, high-precision radiocarbon accelerator. The BRAMS radiocarbon dating facility was established by the School of Chemistry in 2016 and housed in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology. This has led to major methodological developments, including the capability to radiocarbon date individual preserved fatty acids from food residues extracted from archaeological pottery.
The School of Chemistry and Department of Anthropology and Archaeology laboratories are also equipped with a unique suite of state-of-the-art organic mass spectrometry and isotope ratio mass spectrometry instruments for highly sensitive and selective analyses of molecular and isotopic signals held in archaeological materials. These typically include organic residues preserved in archaeological pottery, dietary signals in human and animal skeletal remains, climatic signals held in historic parchments, pigments and binders used in works of art and ancient Egyptian mummy balms.
Additionally, the Bristol Isotope Group uses world-leading mass spectrometric instrumentation to explore intra-lifetime patterns in human and animal diet and mobility from isotope signatures in biological remains.
Recent major discoveries include establishing the palaeoecological range of honeybees exploited by the earliest farmers of Neolithic Europe, Near East and North Africa from beeswax residues in pottery, identifying the earliest-discovered lipid signatures for cereal use, along with milk, from 6,000 year old Scottish ‘crannogs’ and the detailed analysis of milk use in prehistory to provide a new theory for its relationship with the evolution of the ability to digest milk that exists amongst modern-day human populations.
The Centre lead from the University of Bristol, Dr Lucy Cramp, said: “The £1million award to set up the new centre will enhance the analytical capabilities at the University of Bristol to establish a world-leading National facility that will welcome a diversity of research and researchers from across the heritage sector. New analytical instrumentation and laboratories will enable enhanced characterisation and radiocarbon dating of organic compounds in complex mixture.”
Professor Tim Elliott, a co-Investigator on the project from the School of Earth Sciences, said: “This grant really helps focus world-class strengths in sophisticated archaeological analyses dispersed across different Schools in the University of Bristol and is an exciting opportunity that brings together this unique expertise.”
Professor Richard Evershed, a coinvestigator from the School of Chemistry, added: “The new centre builds on more than 30 years of research at the University of Bristol focussed on developing and applying analytical chemistry in the field of heritage science. The RICHeS programme is a highly imaginative vehicle for sharing the expertise and approaches of leading heritage science proponents with the wider UK research community.”
To achieve this, the Bristol team will be appointing a new staff position to join the Centre. Over the next 24 months, they will be installing, testing and validating protocols on the new instruments and co-ordinating refurbishments of existing systems to enhance the delivery of the service to users.
From 2026 they will be ready to offer UK researchers access to a facility for single- and multi-molecular and isotope mass spectrometry approaches that can be applied to heritage materials to further understand their nature, composition, origins and age.
In addition to the analytical facilities, the team will provide access to the latest methods and protocols they develop, as well as providing training, analytical and interpretative support. The ability to coordinate these major types of mass spectrometry analysis will simplify the route to molecular and isotope analyses, unlocking new, ambitious and scientifically rigorous research on heritage collections.
Dr Jim Williams, a project partner from Historic England, added: “There is a major demand for access to these approaches to characterise, provenance and date organic materials, and this new infrastructure will open-up access to advanced instrumentation that does not exist together elsewhere. The expertise within the Centre team will support the development of the highest quality projects and research excellence, drawing in the research potential from developer-funded archaeology and the wider heritage sector beyond academia.”
AHRC Executive Chair, Professor Christopher Smith said: “The UK has a rich and unparalleled cultural heritage and is a global leader in the science of heritage conservation. By investing in heritage science, we are not only unleashing new understanding about our cultural assets but boosting a world-leading heritage economy that will benefit us all. Using the latest technology and scientific equipment, this programme will support access to heritage collections, grow the UK’s heritage economy and drive technological innovation in areas such as material science. With 31 sites across all four devolved administrations and a network of 117 partners in three continents, RICHeS is UKRI’s largest distributed infrastructure and an undisputed world-first. It is an example of how AHRC works at the heart of UKRI to drive interdisciplinary science which benefits citizens, society and the economy.”
Head of the RICHeS programme Professor Meggen Gondek said: “The launch of the RICHeS programme is raising the bar for heritage science globally. It signals a new era where art, culture and science unite to stimulate skills, growth and opportunity. It will secure the UK’s position of excellence in the field and help foster world-class collaborations at both national and international levels.”