From Land to Sea, Bradford

Description

From Land to Sea (a facility for prospection, landscapes and people) is a mobile archaeological prospection laboratory based in the Department of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences at the University of Bradford. It provides agile, easily transportable and cost-effective prospection equipment and expertise for investigating threatened archaeological landscapes that are traditionally difficult to reach, particularly wetlands, littoral and immediate coastal zones, inter-tidal areas and submerged, near-coastal landscapes where evidence of human use and adaptation is currently lacking and where sites are at risk from pressures such as offshore windfarm construction, coastal erosion and dewatering.

The facility aims to reduce the artificial divide between studies of land and sea, allowing researchers to survey on land, in shallow water and in near-coastal areas within a single workflow. Its capabilities include airborne and drone-mounted sensors for large-scale 3D mapping, an upgraded multi-sensor magnetometer array with submergible cables, portable seismic and sub-bottom profiling systems (including a compact profiler that operates to depths of around 50 metres), and a remotely operated vehicle for sample collection, together with data processing and visualisation. Some equipment builds on upgrades supported by earlier AHRC Capability for Collections (CapCo) funding. The RICHeS investment also funds a specialist support post to facilitate access to the techniques, train users, and help plan and execute surveys, and the facility's services are listed in the HSDS Catalogue of Services. The facility works with equipment manufacturers to develop innovative solutions for agile prospection and is available to users in the UK and internationally.

From Land to Sea is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) through the UKRI RICHeS programme (Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science) as a Tranche 1 facility, with an award of 720,000 pounds announced in October 2024. It is in its set-up phase, with the facility being established through 2026, and offers pilot access through the RICHeS Access Fund.

Follow the facility on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

Currently active

Yes

Offers funding

No, this infrastructure does not provide funding.

Founding year

2024

Contact details

On the map

Go to larger version of this map

Categorisation

Type

Tags

University affiliation(s)

University of Bradford
Bradford

Additional Partnerships

Maritime Archaeology Trust