Archaeology BSc (Hons)

To provide students with a broad overview of the disparate sources of evidence used to study the mind and its development.

To develop skills of critical analysis.

Students will develop a critical awareness of how biological and behavioural data are used to construct models of the evolution of human cognition.

​Students will learn to evaluate critically contemporary debates, making informed judgements about the relative strengths and weaknesses of particular arguments.

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Students will develop practical skills of group working and public speaking through participation in the seminars.

Students will learn how to distil complex research papers into their vital conclusions, and to highlight any methodological shortcomings, confounds, or alternative hypotheses.

Students will develop the ability to consolidate insights from different academic disciplines, and to reconcile the different perspectives introduced by these disciplines

Far from relying upon written texts alone, ancient societies typically employed a wide variety of visual media to communicate shared ideas and beliefs. The aim of this module is to acquaint you with the diverse ways in which ancient cultures (Greek, Roman, and their mediterranean conexts) could express themselves visually – encompassing everything from sculpture, painting, and architecture to the images stamped on coins;

​To encourage the development of the critical and methodological skills needed to ‘read’ ancient visual culture and interpret it in wider socio-cultural contexts, both ancient and modern.

Upon successful completion of this module, students will be able to analyse examples of ancient visual culture from a range of different perspectives.

​They will be able to critically evaluate objects and images in different contexts, ancient and modern, and to understand the continuities and differences between them.

​Students will be able to assess the relative contribution and importance of visual culture to the wider picture of the ancient world.

​Students will acquire specific skills necessary to talk and write about ancient visual culture, students will also develop a broader skills base, with a particular focus on different kinds of written communication (e.g. book reviews, reflective responses, essays) and library and other research skills.

To understand the use of human skeletal assemblages as archaeology and material culture. Specifically, students will develop rudimentary skills in handling, identification and develop a deep understanding of the key topics in human osteoarchaeology such as task-related indicators on the skeleton and ancient genetics.

At the end of this module students should be able to describe the principles of handling and identification of human material remains.

Students will be familiar with a number of the main debates such as different approaches to reconstructing diet and DNA analysis.

​At the end of this module students should be able to appraise the archaeological implications concerning the regulations for the retention of human materials.

To introduce students to the aims, methods and applications of archaeobotany;

To introduce students to the wider archaeological and palaeoecological questions and issues addressed by archaeobotanical research;

To familiarise students with the methodologies involved in archaeobotanical sampling, ​identification and data analysis;

To develop student understanding and appreciation of archaeobotanical science applications in contemporary archaeological practice.

To develop students’ knowledge and understandingof Chinese prehistory and the archaeological record in China 10,000 to 2,000 BC;

To develop students’ knowledge and understanding of concepts relating to social and political hierarchy, early states, complex economies;

To develop students’ knowledge and understanding of archaeological methodologies involved in the appearance of village farming and early urbanism;

To develop students’ knowledge and understanding of early Chinese social practices and religion.​

This module aims to provide students with a critical appreciation of major issues such as language and social evolution.

​Become critically aware of the main goals of interpretation in Palaeolithic Archaeology as part of the framework for studying human evolution, particularly through a multidisciplinary approach embracing archaeological evidence, archaeological ideas (‘culture-historical’, processual, post-processual etc.), ideas of evolutionary psychology, and developments in hominid palaeontology and ecology.                      

Students will be able to identify the types of evidence used by Palaeolithic archaeologists to build frameworks for studying human evolution (artefact analyses, palaeontology, environmental evidence, genetics, modern analogies).

Students will understand the main biological, cognitive, technological and social developments in human evolution over the last million years in respect of the following phases: 

The Acheulean of the late Lower/Middle Pleistocene Old World and archaic humans

The Mousterian/MSA industries associated with both archaic species and early modern humans in Africa, the Near East and Europe

The Upper Palaeolithic industries of the last 40,000 years in the Near East, North Africa and Europe and the symbolic explosion in Europe

To provide students with a basic knowledge of how inorganic resources were extracted and processed into useable raw materials, the archaeological evidence for these processes and the sorts of information that that scientific methods can extract from them and how this can be done; ​

To introduce students to the scientific techniques that can be used to investigate the archaeological evidence of these technologies and to interpret the results. 

​Students will learn about the skills and knowledge required to investigate the archaeological evidence of materials processing and use and how to interpret these.

​Students will gain direct knowledge about the diagnostic features of different types of archaeological the diagnostic features of different types of archaeological materials using a variety of scientific methods.

ALGY244 is designed to explore themes of how the ancient Egyptians viewed the world around them;

To look at the ways in which the Egyptians saw the presence and operation of the divine within the natural environment, and how they built structures (especially temples and tombs) which allowed contact between the living and other spiritual entities (the gods, the dead);

To emphasise especially the ways in which the Egyptians intergrated notions of ''sacred landscape'' into their everyday lives.

Students will gain a deep understanding of the complexities of sacred landscapes in ancient Egypt through a comprehensive approach to the material as presented by the Module Tutor and through their directed reading.

​By examining significant case studies of individual sacred landscapes students will derive a broader understanding of the issues involved than by concentrating on broader bodies of data alone.

​Students will develop an understanding of the interelationships between the natural environment, royal monuments, private monuments and, most importantly, the way the natural and built environment actually used, and the way that use changed, over a significant period of time.

To cover British Archaeology from the Neolithic to the onset of Rome;

Moving on from ALGY106 / ALGY131 in year one, to focus on key issues currently under debate in the field of British Archaeology e.g. landscape archaeology, ritual deposition, identity, social organisation;

To consider how we have often constructed the past in our own image and instead to investigate how a critical archaeology is working to uncover the critical ''difference'' of the past;

To develop an understanding of past social practice and to move us toward a new social archaeology​.

Demonstrate a developed knowledge of British Archaeology, a familiarity with the primary archaeological evidence, and an understanding of the different types of social organisation and social change that characterise the periods under discussion.

​Demonstrate critical study skills, such as the ability to follow and augment a course of relevant reading and research, make effective notes, and use the material to take part in class debates.

​Present archaeological arguments in essays and examinations, be able to support these with relevant case studies, and show a critical awareness of how these are linked to changing debates in the field.

​Critically assess the validity of differing archaeological interpretations.

Students will develop a multi-disciplinary perspective on risk.

​Students will become familiar with and learn to employ the basic techniques of evolutionary biology relevant to the analysis of risk, and will be able to assess their relevance and applicability to a series of anthropological case studies

Through the interdisciplinary nature of the module, students will learn to synthesize approaches from diverse disciplines, and to integrate these into a single, holistic approach

​Students will acquire an understanding of the six identified cross-cultural themes that form the core of the module and which relate to key aspects of ancient civilisation. They will apply these themes to three case-study cultures (Archaic and Classical Greece, Iron Age Europe and the ancient Near East);

​This module’s wide-ranging examination of key themes in the archaeology and history of the ancient world provides students with a foundation for other year two and three modules, including the dissertation. Through the study of this module students will also develop a critical appreciation of the three case-study societies and the effects and consequences of warfare upon them;

​This module develops skills of critical thought, debate, and academic writing skills by the application of these to the body of primary and secondary literature;

​This module also develops the essential employability skills of research, presentation (written and verbal) and use of argument.  

​Acquire a critical understanding of the nature of ancient archaeological and historical source materials.

​Develop research skills.

​Develop skills in the use of argument and oral and written presentation.

To explore the archaeology of democracy in Ancient Greece

To use the archaeology of Ancient Greek democracy to explore questions of social, political and cultural significance for global history 

To consider the importance of the materiality of Ancient Greek democracy in the development of later political systems​

Identify the material evidence of political organisation in Ancient Athens and the contemporary world

Compare and evaluate different interpretations of Ancient Athenian democracy and socio-political organisation

Gather, organise and deploy evidence from a variety of appropriate sources, in order to enhance your understanding of the materiality and spatiality of Ancient Athenian democracy​

Construct a reasoned argument and make critical judgements about the materiality and spatiality of democracy from both Ancient Athens and modern contexts in both written and oral form ​

To develop a critical awareness of the limitations and potentials of ethnographic data for interpreting the past;

To apply and develop further analytical skills by assessing critically the use of ethnographic analogies for interpreting the archaeological record;

To apply anthropological theory and analytical methods to the study of specific hunter-gatherers societies;

To develop an evolutionary perspective on hunting and gathering societies;

To develop confidence in public speaking and contributing to discussion;

To develop confidence in the initiation and completion of independent research.

​The student will develop a critical appreciation of the use of hunter-gatherers in evolutionary anthropology.​

​The student will build a working knowledge of the diversity of contemporary and historic hunters and gatherers​.

To understand the developments in hominin biology, changing climate cycles and the spatial arrangement of occupied sites for modern humans for the period 50,000 – 10,000 years bp in Europe;

To develop a critical appreciation of the principal techniques and models used to infer hominin lives and activities from Palaeolithic artefacts;

To learn how to integrate divergent bodies of archaeological evidence into models of Palaeolithic social life;

To learn to present key debates on the module theme using presentation software, concept map software and supporting handouts;

To learn techniques of analysis for lithic technology of the period.

​To develop an understanding of the forms of chronological timescales for the period, the principle forms of data and problems in its interpretation.

​To develop an understanding of the primary archaeolgoical evidence for the period including names of sites, artefact forms, technological sequences, faunal assemblages and dates

​To identify and interpret the lithic archaeological materials for this period using accepted classifications

​To critically analyse archaeological evidence for the period as summarised in graphs and tables (including faunal data, radiocarbon data, genetic data and artefact data)

​To identify a research topic and present an approach to its examination

To apply concepts derived from the ethnographic observation and analysis of contemporary hunter-gatherer societies to past evidence​

To teach students the basic grammar and cuneiform writing system of Akkadian;

To instill awareness of the basic principles of reading a variety of Akkadian cuneiform inscriptions within their cultural contexts.

By the end of the module, successful students will be able to transliterate and translate into English different types of cuneiform inscriptions written in the Akkadian language (Old Babylonian).

​Students successfully completing the module will be familiar with the main points of the cuneiform writing system as well as the Akkadian grammar, will already have read a few Akkadian texts, and will be ready to move on to additional Old Babylonian texts and to begin the study of Standard Babylonian texts.

​Students succesfully completing the module will be able to analyze the material grammatically and contextualize all of the assigned texts in their cultural and historical contexts.

​Students will develop an understanding of developments in anthropological and archaeological theory, through an understanding of how those developments have affected interpretations of mortuary practices.

Students will develop an understanding of interpretative possibilities in relation to past mortuary practices

​Students will develop an understanding of mortuary practices and their interpretation in the Neolithic of the Near East

​Students will develop their critical and analytical skills in handling evidence, evaluating the arguments of others and integrating diverse evidence sets.

​Students will develop their ability to construct and express effective and succinct verbal and written argument

​Students will develop their ability to reflect on verbal feedback on their work and deploy it to improve their work

​Students will develop their ability to identify, recall and deploy material relevant to a particular question

​Students will develop their ability to identify and evaluate controversy in archaeological and other literature

​Students will develop their ability to achieve succinct written exposition and argumentation

To enable students to achieve a rounded understanding of the culture and society of the earliest urban literate communities, found in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC;

To enable students to appreciate some of the methodological issues of using archaeological and early forms of textual evidence as sources for understanding such societies;

To promote and enable the development of students'' critical and analytical approach to evidence and the combined use of different sources of evidence;

To promote and enable the development of students'' ability to construct and express effective verbal and written argument.

Students successfully completing the module will achieve a rounded understanding of the culture and society of  earliest urban literate communities, found in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC.

Students successfully completing the module will appreciate some of the methodological issues of using archaeological and early forms of textual evidence as sources for understanding such societies.​

Students successfully completing the module will further develop critical and analytical approaches to evidence and the combined use of different sources of evidence.​

Students successfully completing the module will further develop their ability to construct and express effective verbal and written argument.​

Students successfully completing the module will develop transferable skills (not all directly tested in the assessment), e.g. listening and note-taking skills; analytical reading; identification, recall and deployment of material relevant to a particular question; awareness of controversy in technical literature; succinct written exposition; succinct oral presentation and discussion of prepared material; time-management.​

This module is designed to provide an introduction to the scientific techniques, other than dating methods, currently used in archaeological research. The main emphasis is on the application of these techniques, their potential and limitations and the forms of data produced.

Students will gain an understanding of how and when it is appropriate to use the different analytical methods available. 

Students will learn how different analytical techniques are employed within archaeology ​

Students will acquire knowledge of the basic scientific principles involved in analysis, sufficient to be able to appreciate the potential of future developments in techniques. ​

To develop a sound knowledge of the range of artworks produced during the Upper Palaeolithic in Europe;

To develop a critical appreciation of the difficulties in recording cave and portable art works;

To develop a critical appreciation of the research problems involved in the study of Palaeolithic art;

To develop a practical understanding of pigments, paints and lighting appropriate to the making of Palaeolithic images.

​To develop a critical appreciation of the social context of the manufacture, observation and use of art and personal ornaments in hunter-gatherer societies

​To develop a critical understanding of problems in dating images in the Palaeolithic

​To develop a clear knowledge of the range of parietal art from France, Spain and Germany, its representations and dating evidence

​To develop a clear knowledge of the range of portable art from France, Spain and Germany, its representations and dating evidence

To make a close examination of the emergence of human behaviour from primate origins;

To explore the basic evidence recovered from early hominid / hominin living sites aged more than about 0.8 million years and to make a close examination of the issues of the emergence of human behaviour;

Following a look at ''pre-archaeological'' evidence - including sites and environments of the Miocene and Pliocene and issues such as the origins of bipedalism and hominid diet - to progress to the mainstream archaeological evidence, starting from the major Rift Valley sites of Africa, and working towards important new evidence in South Africa, Asia and Europe;

To consider the nature of the evidence for developments in tool use, language, fire-use, diet, geographical dispersals and behavioural complexity through the Pleistocene period.

In this module students will become familiar with the major early hominid/hominin species evidence and early archaeological sites across the Old World

Skills in research, critical analysis, written argument construction, artefact identification and the preparation and delivery of presentations will be developed in the course of the module.

​They will become familiar with the nature of the settings of geological, archaeological and environmental evidence and the evidence preserved

​They will become aware of questions and debates concerning the potential and limits of inferences about early hominid/hominin behaviour

This module will introduce students to the archaeology of the southern Levant in the Iron Age .(1200 - 550BC);

This archaeological knowledge will provide students with a good understanding of the material context in which the Hebrew Bible took shape, especially with regards to social, political and economic organisation;

Critical reviews of current debates will provide students with an up-to-date appreciation of emerging controversies, data and methodologies essential for to an informed understanding of the relationship between archaeological evidence and the historical context of the Hebrew Bible;

Students successfully completing the module will achieve a good understanding of the archaeological record of the Levant from ca. 1200-550 B.C., with a particular appreciation of the relationship between archaeological research and the Hebrew Bible.

​Students successfully completing the module will gain significant experience in absorbing, synthesising, and using unfamiliar archaeological and historical evidence for the purposes of investigating questions of general historical and cultural significance.

To examine the development of agriculture, pastoralism and sedentism, all features fundamental to the development of complex and modern society;

​To understand the nature of Neolithic societies in the Near East and thus the social context for and response to the development of agriculture;

​To question when these phenomena appeared, why they might have appeared and how human societies responded to their new opportunities and pressures;

To develop an understanding of the problems and potential of archaeological methodologies in gaining an understanding of these changes and knowledge of ancillary disciplines relating to palaeoenvironmental studies, archaeobotany and palaeozoology;

​To develop students'' critical and analytical approaches to evidence and the combined use of different sources of evidence;

To develop student''s ability to construct and express effective verbal and written argument; ​

To provide opportunities for students to reflect on verbal and written feedback​;

To  promote identification, recall and deployment of material relevant to a particular question​;

To promote awareness of controversy in technical literature​;

To promote succinct written exposition​.

Students will gain knowledge of the development of the first sedentary and agricultural societies, the transition from Palaeolithic foragers to Neolithic farmers,and critical skills relating to the handling of evidence relevant to these issues and to much of the interpretation of prehistoric archaeology.

Students will develop knowledge of archaeological methodologies applied in the study of agricultural origins, including​ palaeoenvironmental studies, archaeozoology, archaeobotany, human osteoarchaeology.

Students will develop an understanding of developments in archaeological theory, through an understanding of how those dveelopment has affected interpretations of origins of agriculture.​

Students will develop their critical and analytical skills​ in handling evidence, evaluating the arguments of others and integrating diverse evidence sets.

Students will develop their abilityto construct and express effective and succinct verbal and written argument ​​

Students will develop their ability to reflect on verbal feedback on their work​ and deploy it to improve their work

Students will develop their ability to identify, recall and deploy material relevant to a particular question​

Students will develop their ability to identify and evaluate controversy in archaeological and other literature​

This module provides an overview of the expansion of Greek culture into all areas of the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas as a result of colonial expansion in the archaic period (8th to 6th centuries BC) and the thematic study of the general methods, processes and outcomes of the colonisation movement;

Students will also acquire a considerable subject-specific knowledge of the history and archaeology of the subject and will develop a critical awareness of the broader issues in the study of classical archaeology and thematic issues connected with migration in all periods;

This module develops skills of critical thought, debate, and academic writing skills by the application of these to the body of primary and secondary literature surrounding Archaic Greek colonisation and British scholarship of that process in the Twentieth Century;

This module also develops the essential employability skills of presentation (written, verbal, visual), team-working and use of ITC.

Acquire an understanding of the Greek colonial movement in the archaic period (8th to 6th centuries BC) and become familiar with its chronological, geographical and cultural framework, including key archaeological sites and historical sources.

Acquire a critical understanding of British imperial thought in the Twentieth Century, how this has affected scholarship of Greek colonisation in the West, and what this tells us about the construction of archaeological and historical knowledge about the ancient past.

Develop skills in the critical application of both archaeological and historical source materials in answering questions about the ancient world and to practice critical thought and discussion.

gained an appreciation of the range of scope and high quality of the archaeological evidence for the frontiers of the Roman empire.This will bring out the different devices and systems that evolved in response to particular problems in particular sectors of the frontiers;

​enhanced their understanding of the history of the Roman provinces as well as imperial policy decision making through exploring how frontiers systems were built and evolved over time;

​acquired an appreciation of some of the ways that frontiers and zones of cultural interaction might be variously interpreted.

​acquired a critical appreciation of  how archaeological and historical sources can be used to reconstruct the history of the Roman provinces

​​acquired the ability to detail key features of the history of scholarship of the Roman provinces​​​ and how scholarship has evolved over time

To introduce students to the history of economic thought from ancient times to the present day;

To introduce students to key issues and concepts in the field of economic anthropology;

To introduce students to the theory and applications of economic archaeology through case studies drawn from various periods of the human past, focusing on the comparative analysis of past economies;

To enable students to achieve a theoretically and empirically grounded understanding of key anthropological and archaeological concepts in the study of human economics;

To enhance student appreciation of key intellectual and methodological issues arising from evaluating different theoretical approaches and sources of evidence as pathways for understanding human economic behaviours past and present;

To foster the development of student critical thinking and analytical approach to evidence and the combined use of different sources of evidence;

To promote the development of student ability to construct and express effective verbal and written argument.

Achieve an understanding of how an anthropologically-informed understanding of human economic systems can increase our understanding of the diversity, function and historical context of past economies, and the evolution of human economic behaviours through time, from prehistory to the present. This will be achieved through the exploration of relevant bodies of anthropological and economic theory complemented by the study of relevant archaeological case studies from different time periods and world regions.

Appreciate some of the analytical and methodological issues arising from the use of theoretical approaches in conjunction with appropriate anthropological, historical and archaeological evidence, as sources for understanding human socioeconomics.

Understand the nature of, and intellectual challenges presented by, integrated anthropological and archaeological approaches to the comparative analysis of past economic systems.

Develop transferable skills, applicable to academic and non-academic environments, such as independent reading and research, critical evaluation of contrasting arguments and sources of evidence; effective and concise verbal and written expression; critical thinking; awareness of controversy in literature and debate; time-management.

​Understand the different aspects of geoarchaeology and scientific archaeology

​Know the range of different practical analyses that can be used in geoarchaeological and archaeometric investigations

Understand how and where to apply multiple datasets in geoarchaeological and archaeometric investigations​

Critically evaluate competing theories of landscape and palaeoenvironmental development​

​Critically evaluate the benefits of different techniques and be able to assess the appropriate scientific techniques to answer archaeological questions

​​Assess and communicate the level of certainty in predictions from imperfect datasets

​Use different microscopy techniques to recognise important minerals and alteration products

​​Use data from a range of scientific methods to interpret landscape and palaeoenvironmental influences, source materials and chronology

​Use and correlate stratigraphic data from archaeological sites

​Presentation skills for written and oral work and communication of scientific data to different audiences

​Working collaboratively to summarise and share information effectively during development of an online resource

The module covers the Iron Age in Europe from 800 BC-AD 70. We will focus on the development of the field, and the themes of settlement, traditions of artefact deposition, land use, burial traditions, and understanding society. With a focus on Britain, reference will also be made to the continental material (especially France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the Iberian peninsula). The aims of the module are to provide a detailed understanding of Later European Prehistory, the types of archaeological evidence encountered, and how to employ critical method in approaching this material.

Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the primary archaeological evidence, and an understanding of the different types of social organisation that characterise the Iron Age in Britain and beyond.

​Demonstrate advanced study skills, such as the ability to undertake a course of relevant reading, prepare for tutorial sessions with their supervisor, and lead seminar discussions.

​Present their own arguments in seminars and essays, supported by relevant case studies and original analysis, and show a critical awareness of how these develop current debates in the field.

To introduce frameworks for interpreting the later African record;

To provide an overview of African environments - present and past - and their impact on the structure of the archaeological record;

To review the archaeological and fossil record from the late Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene;

To address key issues of behavioural change.

Students will gain an understanding of the history of archaeological research in Africa

Students will gain ​a critical awareness of the limitations of the data used by archaeologists to generate theories of behavioural change

​Students will gain a working knowledge of regional trends in the African record from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene

​Students will gain confidence in synthesising and presenting data

This module aims to teach students the basic grammar and cuneiform writing system of Sumerian;

​To foster awareness of the basic principles of reading a variety of Sumerian cuneiform inscriptions within their cultural contexts.

By the end of the course, successful students will be able to transliterate and translate different types of cuneiform inscriptions written in Sumerian.

Students successfully completing the module will be able to analyze the material grammatically.

​Students will be able to contextualize all of the assigned texts in their cultural and historical contexts.​

​To develop a critical understanding of problems in reconstructing and examining daily life in the Greek and Roman worlds

​To develop a discrete research project on a house and household as well as evaluate key themes and approaches to archaeology of households

​To develop a clear knowledge of the range of houses (form, decoration and household activities) from Greek and Roman worlds