Archaeomaterials science is a discipline integrating the study of material culture with the application of scientific methods adopted from natural sciences, geosciences and material engineering. This is done with the aim of understanding past technologies and craft specialization, socio-economic systems and interregional and transregional exchange in antiquity.

Conservation research is a discipline focusing on the relation between material properties and the mechanisms of alterations induced by anthropogenic, environmental and diagenetic processes. It is aimed at determining suitable conservation treatments and materials.
Microarchaeological studies are also concerned with collecting and analyzing physical evidence in the field and in the laboratory using advanced and innovative techniques from the fields of micromorphology, forensic studies and law enforcement procedures to assist in the authentication, provenance and post depositional processes of cultural heritage.