Welcome to Bradford - Archaeological and Forensic Sciences
The School of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences integrates Archaeological Sciences, Biological Anthropology, Cultural Archaeology and Forensic Sciences to study people, society and the environment in the present and the past. This vision is promoted through the school's specialist groups including the Submerged Landscape Research Centre, the Biological Anthropology Research Centre, the Stable Isotope Centre and Visualising Heritage. From digital objects to landscapes, geophysics, GIS and the creation of virtual environments, the School promotes new ways to see and understand our past, present and future and uses leading research to inform teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
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Dr Cathy Batt
Dr Cathy Batt
Head of the School of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences
Sakura Cherry Tree Project unveiled in University of Bradford Peace Garden
22 Apr by James Walker
Lake Ogawara, Amori, Japan
Images: 1) Robyn Pelling and Simon Fitch with Professor Kondo and other colleagues; 2) at Lake Ogawara and at work aboard a vessel; 3) unveiling of Cherry Tree in the Peace Garden with University of Bradford VC Prof Nick Braisby Video: INNOMAR in action, deployed at Lake Ogawara
The Sakura Cherry Tree Project celebrates Japan’s collaboration with the UK. Two cherry trees were unveiled in the Peace Garden at the University of Bradford on 21st April 2026 to symbolise a partnership formed in January 2025 between the SOKENDAI University in Japan and the University of Bradford. The collaboration involves two research teams, the Submerged Landscapes Research Centre, Bradford (SLRC) and Research Institute for Humanities and Nature, SOKENDAI (RIHN). The Bradford component of this research is spearheaded by Dr Simon Fitch who is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, seeking to reveal how Late Palaeolithic peoples around the world lived before rising waters swallowed the region at the end of the last Ice Age as part of the Life on the Edge project.
In March 2026, Dr Fitch led a team of staff and students to Lake Ogawara in Amori prefecture of Japan to investigate the submerged archaeology there. To examine the landscape beneath the water, the team flew cutting edge sub-bottom profiling equipment to Japan, demonstrating the role of Bradford-based equipment being easily and rapidly deployed across the globe. This infrastructure was funded as part of the ‘From Land to Sea Project A facility for prospection, landscapes and people' as one of 30 projects to receive funding from the Arts & Humanities Research Council as part of RICHeS (Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science).
The partners also worked together to acquire core samples from targeted locations around the edge of Lake Ogawara which will inform an understanding of the past environment, and how it has changed over the past 20,000 years. Doctoral researcher Robyn Pelling has been harnessing immersive 360 capture to visualise past landscapes using modern proxies across a variety of landscapes throughout different seasons where there are comparative biota. These will help to envision the complex land and sea transformation that occurred due to climate change at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, and where possible to reconstruct this evolving landscape to better understand the people whose lives were affected by it.
