Centre for Human-Animal-Environment Bioarchaeology

Description

The planet is under growing pressure from an increasing human population and the associated intensification of food production, urbanisation, globalisation, inequality, conflict, environmental degradation and climate change.

These global challenges are neither independent of each other nor exclusively modern phenomena. They are critically entangled together, with deep bio-cultural histories.

Bioarchaeologists are well placed to explore the rise and impact of global challenges, having millennia of bio-cultural material (e.g. human, animal and plant remains). These ancient datasets can be analysed, using techniques from across the Arts-Science spectrum, to model human-animal-environment dynamics through time, contextualise present day problems and inform mitigation strategies.

The mission of the HumAnE Bioarchaeology Centre is to do precisely this. Members address both scientific and socio-cultural aspects of human-animal-environment interactions, uniting ancient and modern datasets to transform standards of research practice, increase the power of results and effect culturally specific, positive, impact.