PhD Studentship (AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Award with the Natural History Museum): Digital Tools for Molecular Conservation and Heritage

Museums and archives hold rich collections of cultural artefacts of increasing interest to
molecular scientists. Studies of ancient DNA and isotopes can be used to explore questions of ancient trade and settlement patterns, raw material procurement and artefact manufacture, diet and subsistence, evolution, extinction, and resilience from local to global scales. These molecular techniques can also enhance the value of the collections, by providing new insight into the manufacturing processes, provenance, and historical significance of museum specimens, as well
as helping to understand, predict and mitigate degradation processes. Determining what and how to sample can be extremely challenging: while molecular techniques can provide an
unprecedented level of detail about a specimen, they are often destructive and require informed policies for sampling.