Geoarchaeology Laboratory

The Institute's Geoarchaeology Laboratory provides staff and students with facilities for geoarchaeological research and teaching.

‘Earth’ is a generic term for rocks, soils, and sediments. ‘Earth’ also brings to mind space, territory, landscape, and the planet; consequently, it invokes all the terrestrial components of the constructed human niche in their geographical context.

The Geoarchaeology Lab is the core hub of the Institute's Earthlab group, providing the lab-based foundation for stratigraphic- and landscape-focussed geoarchaeological research at the Institute of Archaeology. The lab’s agenda is to investigate “past earth” through the study of material signatures of specific human, diagenetic, and sedimentary processes.  

Indicative (ongoing) projects:

• Development of Dutch plaggen soils (PhD, Jonathan Cogdale)
• Lamanai urban stratigraphy (PhD, Francesca Glanville-Wallis, LAHP funded)
• Geoarchaeology and archaebotany of Amazonian dark earths (PhD, Wiktoria Sagan, part of the PARINÃ project, a partnership with Museu da Amazônia, Museu Goeldi, Federal São Carlos University, and Instituto Socioambiental, Brazil)
• Anthrosols and the geoarchaeology of slash and burn cultivation (led by Manuel Arroyo-Kalin as co-Lead with Museu Goeldi; UKRI funding applied for; London NERC DTP PhD project registered)
• Geoarchaeology of Low density urbanism in the Bolivian Amazon (led by Manuel Arroyo-Kalin as co-lead with Bonn University; UCL GEO scoping funding awarded in 2024)   

 Our "lab" is a really a distributed network of facilities that includes:

Room B50 (aka the Geoarchaeology Lab, part of Wolfson Archaeological Science Labs), which houses equipment for geoarchaeological research, including a state-of-the-art Logitech GTS-1 saw and an LP70 lapping unit to manufacture large format thin sections for micromorphological and petrographic analyses. The Lab also has acquired a SUERC pOSL unit for luminescence stratigraphy studies and possesses two Bartington magnetic susceptibility meters. The room is equipped with a dessicator ovens, a centrifuge, electronic balances, hydrometers, Endecott sieves, pH meters, and assorted glassware for sedimentological research. Room B50 is used primarily for research except during term 2, when it is also used for teaching.

Room 302 (aka the Micromorphology Lab, part of the Palaeoenvironmental Labs) is our facility to dry samples collected in the field and where we resin impregnate/embed samples for the manufacture of thin sections. The room includes a fume cupboard, air extractor and houses a Logitech vacuum impregnation chamber. Room B302 is used exclusively for sample preparation.

Room B10 (aka the Optical Microscopy Lab, part of the Wolfson Archaeological Science Labs) is a shared lab that houses optical petrographic microscopes (transmitted light/polarising) and stereo zoom microscopes equipped with digital cameras, as well as lower end microscopes. Room B10 is used exclusively for research; microscopes should be booked via ClusterMarket.

Room 401 (reference collection), also Manuel Arroyo-Kalin's office, houses the Cornwall and Macphail thin section reference collections, as well as Arroyo-Kalin's research collection. In aggregate, these reference slides cover a large number of known contexts studied by micromorphologists. Our yearly Archaeological Micromorphology Course (next run in February 2025), jointly organised by Manuel Arroyo-Kalin and Richard Macphail, provides an opportunity for dedicated study of these collections.     

Lab members also use other equipment and facilities available at the Institute of Archaeology, including the Wolfson Labs's SEM/EDS, pXRF, Muffle furnace, cold store for sediment storage, milling unit, pellet unit, Brillant saw, and the Paleoenvironmental Lab's fume cupboards for OM removal and phytolith extraction).

• Research Enquiries (including doctoral supervision): Manuel Arroyo-Kalin, Associate Professor in Geoarchaeology
• Lab Support: Timea Grego