Historical Archaeology

This exciting BA Single Honours degree enables students to develop their passion for studying history in combination with archaeological training in historic-period material and visual culture, museum collections, buildings and landscapes and world heritage. With a particular focus on the archaeology of the last 2000 years, this course offers a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary learning and skills providing an opportunity across all three years to study a combination of modules in the Departments of Archaeology and History and complement this with modules from other subject areas.

Classroom-led teaching and small-group seminar work are combined with practical, lab and collections-based training, field visits and participation in the annual field school. Students can choose from a range of specialist modules on the archaeology of historic period societies in Europe, the Mediterranean, North Africa, East and South East Asia, the Indian Ocean and Middle East as well as thematic modules covering aspects of the early modern and modern world, such as colonialization, transatlantic connections, slavery, trade and industrialisation.

In the first year, students acquire the basic range of intellectual and practical archaeological skills. In the second and third years students move to more in-depth study of particular topics and methods working closely with staff and developing their own independent research project in their third year.

Students studying this course can also follow a route accredited by CIfA, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists. Choosing an accredited undergraduate degree is widely recognised as the first step on a career pathway leading to professional status. To obtain a CIfA accredited degree, students study modules that equip them with the requisite theoretical and practical knowledge to act as a foundation for a career in the UK commercial archaeology sector.