Metal is at the heart of archaeology: it permeated ancient societies, drew together far-flung regions, was central to economies, and opened unique avenues for self-expression. However, the scientific study of copper-alloy is currently fractured and cut off from the realities of modern archaeology in the UK. This programme has two important, related missions: to create new connections across the national heritage sector for archaeological chemistry, and at the same time, to reimagine what chemical analysis can reveal about our material past. It will deliver an ambitious analysis programme, tracing the nuanced flow and impact of metal around the Iron Age, Roman and Early Medieval world, from 50 BC to AD 1066. This will be delivered by new chemical and conceptual models, which move beyond provenance and object biographies. I will tackle the structural barriers that have stopped chemistry becoming an inclusive, standard tool across the heritage community. I will establish a national network of researchers and create real opportunities for lasting collaboration and debate, based around tiers of training, internships and workshops. This will form the first ever national programme for the analysis of first millennium AD British copper-alloy artefacts and address a number of current problems. My research has shown that the chemistry of a unit of metal is not static or solely determined by geology. Instead, it is a subtle and mutable record of the life history of the material. Previously overlooked shifts within the chemical record document human behaviour and technological processes. The data directly speaks to the concerns of the humanities and archaeology today. My new approach captures the flow, exchange, recycling, and human choices surrounding the use of metal in the past, as real people both shaped and were shaped by technology. The Portable Antiquities Scheme has recorded a staggering 330,000 copper alloy finds from the Iron Age, Roman, and Early Medieval periods, all reported by the general public. This achievement shows the power of citizen science and the true scale of the UK's metallurgical past, a new archive to complement the world-leading collections of Britain's museums and the huge volume of work by commercial archaeology units. This mountain of history urgently requires UK-wide attention, to improve the quality of analyses and to interpret regional and national trends. We will work with 30 partner organisations to produce 10,000 precise analyses of selected artefacts, across 100 themed case studies, in a dedicated laboratory at the University of Reading. Rather than focus on pockets of heritage, this will be a systematic investigation of all British regions, and the full array of material culture. The chemical analysis of artefacts is often expensive and marginalising for heritage managers. Several partners on this project have complained of being left to translate results with little training, or more worryingly, being ignored by specialists in laboratories. There is little trust or dialogue between sectors of the heritage community. Even material culture specialists do not know what chemistry can do for them, with few having the opportunity to find out. This programme will directly tackle these engrained problems through tiers of training and knowledge exchange events. In order to understand our material past, we have to fundamentally change the way we discuss it in the present. This programme will improve all the tools that we have available: the chemical data, UK coverage, archaeological connections, models, open access archives and publications. But more importantly it will bring together all voices within the heritage community and place science at the heart of our social debates. The opportunity offered by the undiscovered first millennium AD and the power of the Future Leaders Fellowships, provide the leverage to deliver lasting and crucial change to the British archaeological landscape.

Biocultural heritage - the physical remains of ancient humans, animals, plants and landscapes, as well as material and visual culture - is an important resource. It represents tangible evidence for human interactions with the natural world, biodiversity, food systems, human-animal-environmental health, and exploitation of organic raw materials. As such, there is a growing recognition that interdisciplinary studies of biocultural heritage can help address modern global challenges, all of which are fundamentally cultural with deep histories. Yet biocultural heritage is a finite resource and one that is under threat. At the landscape scale, climate change is endangering heritage sites. Museum collections are being impacted by the curation crisis, which is seeing materials refused accession or deaccessioned without record. But there is also a significant threat to biocultural heritage from the research practices of scientists themselves. Advances in archaeological science are seeing increasing quantities of material targeted for destructive analyses (e.g. aDNA, proteomics, isotopes, radiocarbon dating, organic residue analysis, and histology). Whilst such individual analyses generate transformative results, our networks and research partners (including national institutions, museum curators, archives, community archaeology groups and commercial units) have raised ethical issues associated with the destruction of biocultural heritage. They have highlighted the overwhelming need for: 1) specimens to be preserved by 3D record; 2) scans to be made available for future analyses; 3) data from destructive analysis to be linked to 3D records in a way that is accessible to curators and broader research communities both in the UK and abroad. The last is particularly important to ensure that materials are not repeatedly sampled by different research groups and so that independent lines of evidence can be brought together. To address these issues of collections preservation, storage and accessibility the Biocultural HIVE will: Upgrade our existing physical archive space to better accommodate our own nationally important biocultural collections and provide appropriate environmentally controlled temporary storage for materials being analysed by our CResCa-funded digital imaging facility, SHArD-3D. 2. Create a new laboratory space so that researchers can access, and have space to study, our permanent and temporary collections. 3. Collate and standardise the large quantities of 3D and analytical data from our SHArD-3D collaborations and international UKRI, Wellcome Trust and ERC projects. 4. Use the data generated by point 3) to create and test an open-access, continuously updateable, digital repository (rather than closed-dataset repositories e.g. Archaeology Data Service) for the curation and sharing of digital 3D files and other analytical results. 5. Drawing on expertise from the UKRI funded GLAM-E we will embed ethical data practices into our digital platforms and co-create appropriate open-access policies with our partners. 6. Employ a Database Manager to 1) liaise with stakeholders and 2) populate and maintain the repository with the ultimate intention of migrating it to the RICHeS Digital Research Service at Daresbury, so that it is sustainable beyond the life of the project. This resource will benefit the heritage science community and provide researchers with the ability to deposit, update, and access collections/data on an unprecedented scale. Beyond this it will create a new research platform for data mining, the application of deep-learning technologies, and ensure we are delivering world-leading heritage science.