[See Undergraduate Prospectus entry for UCAS Code: V400]
Archaeology is the study of the human past through the medium of surviving material remains. Unlike the historian, whose work is based largely on documentary evidence, the archaeologist studies artefacts from the remote past — fragmentary remains of houses, tombs, tools, and industrial or domestic debris — and the contexts in which they occur.
Our core first and second level courses offer a general introduction to Old World prehistory and to basic archaeological techniques and methods. In the honours (third and fourth) years, all students take a course on the philosophy and methodology of archaeology but are otherwise free to choose whether to specialise in a geographical area — Europe, including Britain, or the Mediterranean and Middle East — or to concentrate on the earlier or later periods of prehistory, or on environmental archaeology or archaeological illustration.
All students attend a field course and undertake two weeks' excavation during their first year.
They then choose either to undertake further archaeological practical work and take a final year option course on archaeological fieldwork, or to complete the degree without a practical work component. Those who opt for a degree with practical work may participate in projects run by Archaeology staff (currently in Cyprus, France, Italy, Slovenia, and the Middle East) or work on other approved projects in the UK or abroad.
|
