Program Overview

Explore humanity from its earliest origins to the cultures and societies of today with our BA Archaeology and Anthropology with Professional Placement degree.

This four-year, joint honours course combines archaeology’s examination of material evidence from our past and present with anthropology’s focus on human development and contemporary cultures and societies. Studying these two disciplines together allows you insight and understanding of what it means to be human.

This understanding will be crucial in addressing issues critical to our shared global future, including:

• the relationship between humans and environmental change
• inequality, migration and identity
• population growth and development
• human diets and health
• politics, economics and sustainability.

By examining human development, behaviour and different cultures, you will better understand the roots of these issues, and learn how other societies have tackled comparable problems – and how contemporary societies are addressing them now.

Using methodological approaches from the sciences, social sciences and humanities, you will examine the diversity of human experience. You will learn about the biological evolution of our earliest ancestors, the pre-historical and historical development of different cultures, and present-day ways of life and social issues.

During your studies you will analyse:

• material culture
• biological evidence
• ethnographic evidence
• theoretical and empirical perspectives from the past and present.

Your studies in the Department of Archaeology will encompass ethnographic approaches and case studies, and the study of social and scientific archaeology, including:

• the investigation of artefacts recovered through excavation
• the study of human bones (including osteology and palaeopathology)
• the study of plant and animal remains
• human-environment interaction
• how climate and environmental change have affected lives past and present
• religious, social, economic and political diversity around the world.

On this course you will learn through a combination of field classes and fieldwork projects, lectures and seminars, laboratory and other practical work, and placements.

Depending on your module choices, methods of assessment can range from fieldwork diaries and laboratory-based practical tests to article critiques and presentations.

Professional Placement

A key component of this course is a fourth year so that you can complete a placement during your third year of study.

A professional placement allows you to apply – and increase – your academic knowledge while enhancing your employability.

Previous placement students have analysed samples in labs, processed human remains, worked on hominin skeletal morphology, drawn archaeological finds, conducted collections-based research, studied the ecology of the Crusades through isotope analysis and faunal remains, investigated paleoclimate records, and participated in castle excavations in Spain.

You can complete your placement with an employer in the UK or abroad, and take advantage of our connections with a range of organisations in the archaeological, heritage, planning and museum sectors, including:

• research institutions
• government organisations
• local planning authorities
• archaeological consultancies
• field units
• archivists.