Ben Stern and Cathy Batt from the Department of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences have just published a second edition of their book ‘Analytical Chemistry in Archaeology’, along with their co-authors from the Universities of Oxford, East Michigan, Missouri and Massachusetts.

The initial inspiration for the book came when trying to find a good reference source to recommend to undergraduates and postgraduates studying archaeological sciences at Bradford. ‘Along with lead author Mark Pollard (Professor of Archaeological Sciences at Bradford at the time), we found that there was nothing published that covered the wide range of analytical approaches applied in archaeology and explained them in a way that understood both the underlying science and the archaeological questions. So, we approached Cambridge University Press about converting our teaching materials into a book and they were enthusiastic’, says Ben.

The first edition was published in 2006 and was described as ‘a valuable resource…..provides enough information to allow readers to find their own depth within the subject' by Journal of Medieval Archaeology . The volume also has 4.8 stars on Amazon and 4 stars on goodreads! The field has developed significantly in recent years and so the publishers requested an updated edition.

‘One of the delightful, but unexpected, consequences of all the hard work that goes into writing a book like this, is meeting new international postgraduate students who say that they came to study at Bradford because they read the book and that made them realize what an exciting subject archaeological science is.’ says Cathy.