With 50 years of academic excellence as a University, University of Bradford has continued to grow its international reputation and course provision. It has pioneered in developing new course subjects, reflecting and anticipating the needs of employers, students, and of society as a whole. Bradford was the first university outside London to offer part-time degree courses, and these courses are designed in response to the changing business, social, scientific and environmental landscape. The University of Bradford uniquely integrates Archaeological Sciences, Biological Anthropology and Forensic Sciences and shares an interest in the study of people and their environments in the present and the past. The approach is profoundly multidisciplinary, bridging the sciences and the humanities. Teaching is led by research and practice. The breadth and depth of staff expertise informs an approach that combines formal, up-to-date instruction with extensive hands-on experience in the laboratory and in fieldwork. University of Bradford specialises, amongst other domains, in the application of isotopic tools to address questions in archaeological, anthropological, environmental, palaeodietary, climate and forensic research. The university has a well-equipped laboratory, capable of analysing the stable isotopes of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and sulphur from most organic and inorganic materials. Its laboratories are experienced in the preparation and analysis of bone, dentine, hair and other organic residues; tooth enamel and other bio-carbonate minerals, and inorganic carbonates; plants and sediments. Additionally, its laboratories are equipped to sample and perform high-resolution analyses of incremental tissues including hair, nail, teeth, and shell and cave carbonates. Its stable light isotopes laboratories are housed in the Analytical Centre, and managed by the School of Archaeological Sciences.
Key Personnel
Dr Hannah Koon has 13 years of experience of working with archaeological skeletal remains from the macroscopic and microscopic scale down to biomolecular level analyses. She is most interested in the development and application of morphological and biochemical methods to address lifestyle questions that relate to historical populations. She has contributed expertise to several research projects; utilizing different approaches to investigate growth, diet, identity and disease (osteology, palaeopathology, proteomics, electron microscopy, isotopes) (e.g. Reynard et al. 2016; Ehrlich et al. 2010; Koon et al. 2010). This research has been underpinned by her work on bone chemistry, taphonomy and diagenesis particularly focused on the effects of cooking and the depositional environment on the survival of ancient proteins (e.g. Simpson et al 2016; Koon 2012; Milner et al. 2011). Her work on nutritional disorders has used combined palaeopathological and biochemical markers to highlight deficiency diseases in early migrational populations, utilising cutting-edge proteomic and isotopic approaches (Koon & Tuross, 2013; Koon & Pendery 2013). The research on biochemical markers for scurvy has been presented at a number of international conferences and highlighted in recent articles as having great potential for use in palaeopathology (Armelagos et al. 2014. Klaus, H.D., 2015 both in International Journal of Paleopathology; Travis, J. 2008 Science). Most recently she has investigated changes in diet and evidence for migration in archaeological populations from Slovenia and Croatia through palaeopathological and isotopic analyses (Nicholls and Koon 2016). She is Co-director of the stable isotope research lab at Bradford.
