Infrastructures

The IAUB has its headquarters at the Facultat de Geografia i Història, at the city centre of Barcelona, in the Raval quarter, one of the most culturally active neighboorhods of the city. We are very close to the Museum of Contemporary Art or the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB). The administrative office has a meeting room and three small offices for the director and administration.

The spaces that we used are kindly shared by the different Faculties and Departments optimising resources and infraestructures. We are grateful for these collaborations.

One of the main infrastructure used by IAUB is the Laboratory of Archaeology and Archaeometry of the Faculty of Geography and History, run by the Department of History and Archaeology, Section of Prehistory and Archaeology. All researchers and research groups of this section are part of IAUB and therefore use this infrastructure for archaeological and archaeometric laboratory work.

The laboratory has storage space for archaeological materials, a section devoted to washing, classifying, and drawing archaeological materials, and a different section specific to the preparation of organic and inorganic samples for further analysis.

Laboratory of Archaeology and Archaeometry

The Laboratory of Medieval Archaeology belongs to the Faculty of Geography and History and it is run by the area of Medieval History of the Department of History and Archaeology. It is the headquarters of medieval archaeology teams linked to IRCVM, and it hosts the GRAMP-Med research group led by M. Dolores López and integrated into the IAUB.

The dating centre is found at the Faculty of Chemistry.

The aim of the Dating Centre is to establish a chronological framework for different problems of prehistoric, historical, paleontological interest or related to objects of cultural heritage. To achieve this objective, the Dating Centre proposes the study of the problem as a whole through all the evidence that may be associated with it, whether it is an archaeological site, the distribution of an activity throughout a territory, the persistence of a type of species or the relationship between a set of artistic objects.

The Dating Center has experience in the development and application of dating methods based on radioactive isotopes. It also has the necessary equipment to carry out these determinations. In any case, the studies it develops are not restricted to this type of analysis but, its location and experience in the field of chemical analysis, allow it to implement this global approach with the selection and execution of any other determination necessary to obtain the information required by each study proposed.

Members of the Dating Center. Initially, it is formed by José F. García, Héctor Bagán, Alex Tarancón (Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry Section).

Most of the analytical techniques that we apply to archaeological materials are available at the Scientific and Technological Services of the University of Barcelona. These are central facilities for analytical work shared by all members of the UB community and beyond. We are extremely fortunate to be able to access this infrastructure.

The IAUB uses primarily the libraries of each of the faculties involved in the institute and the library of letters in the historic building. The specialised library in Archaeology is in the Faculty of Geography and History. Many contents are available online for UB staff.