The University of Huddersfield is the new home for the Centre of Archaeology, who are continuing to develop their world-renowned work in several exciting projects both in the UK and overseas.
Led by Caroline Sturdy Colls, Professor of Holocaust Archaeology and Genocide Investigation, the Centre’s team of experts investigate past human activity and highlight issues in the present day.
In particular, the team explore how conflict, genocide, human evolution, identity and climate change have shaped the world in which we live. They utilize archaeological and historical skills to find, document and preserve the evidence and heritage connected to these events.
Professor Sturdy Colls’ groundbreaking work, using non-invasive technology, discovered evidence of gas chambers and mass graves at the site of the World War 2 Nazi death camp at Treblinka in Poland in 2013. The team have investigated more than 60 Holocaust sites across Europe.
Other projects led by her colleagues Kevin Colls, Will Mitchell and Dr Daria Cherkaska have focused on the Herero and Nama Genocide in Namibia and Holocaust-era mass graves in Ukraine.
The team have brought several ongoing research projects with them to the University of Huddersfield. Linked to Treblinka is the Centre’s project around the Jewish refugee children who had lost their families in the death camp and were evacuated to the Lake District in 1945. The Centre’s experts have excavated the site of a ‘lost’ village near Windermere, and are now archiving physical evidence of the children’s time in the area.
Learn more: Centre of Archaeology – University of Huddersfield
