Archaeology

Drawing on the wealth of expertise and experience within the department, the MA in Archaeology offers you the opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge you will need to build a fascinating and challenging career in commercial archaeology, heritage management, research, or the wider employment market.

The course is available as a full-time option over one year or part-time over two years and features specialist modules, taught classes and workshops alongside dissertation research. The course is organised around 6 diverse strands to allow you to specialise in your chosen area of archaeology. These are Landscape Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, the Archaeology of Egypt, the Near East and Asia, the Archaeology and Heritage of East Asia, Classical and Roman Archaeology, and Medieval and Post Medieval Archaeology (click here for more information).

Each route will give you the opportunity to advance your skills and expertise dependent upon your interests and career aims, with a view to progressing either to doctoral-level research or to developing your career in archaeology and a range of other fields. You will also have the opportunity to engage with the broader student community within the department by participating in shared research, presentation and practical skills learning, and through discussions and our full calendar of events.

An exceptionally wide scope of methodological and research expertise exists within Durham’s Department of Archaeology, and you can draw on this expert knowledge to advance your own area of archaeological interest. Subjects offered include the Palaeolithic, Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages of Europe to the Classical archaeology of the Greek and Roman worlds, through Egyptology, the archaeology of the ancient and Islamic Near East and Arabia to Buddhism in South Asia and trade in the Indian Ocean, as well as the archaeology of the medieval, post-medieval and historic periods.

During the course, you will also develop your abilities and experience in areas such as the collection, management and analysis of archaeological data and materials, current archaeological approaches, methods and practice and the presentation of archaeological research.

Our MA in Archaeology will undoubtedly equip you for a wide range of careers in archaeology, academia, cultural heritage management, research, and journalism, as well as many other careers that have a cultural, social, or heritage focus.

Course Structure

Core modules:

Research and Study Skills in Social Archaeology provides you with an understanding of the latest tools, skills and methods for learning, research and presentation in archaeology. You will be shown how to think critically about source material, ethics in research, how to process and visualise data, how to use resources such as libraries, databases, online sources as well as other sources including archives, grey literature and maps. You will be introduced to compiling and using databases, and the use of visual presentations, tools and conventions. Your dissertation will challenge you to practise, develop and demonstrate your research skills involving published literature and the compiling of new data on a specific research topic. 

The Dissertation provides the experience of sustained, rigorous, independent research under the close guidance of a specialist academic supervisor that is a necessary foundation both for further post-graduate academic work and for professional report writing. Under the guidance of your assigned dissertation supervisor, you will familiarise yourself with published literature on your chosen topic, develop a research design, collect data and draw your own conclusions..

The remainder of the course will be made up of modules where you will choose from multiple exciting options, including:

Practical Research and Study Skills: This module runs in term 2, where you will select two topics from a range of options in ‘Master Classes’ led by professionals and academic experts, typically taught through workshops. Recent options have included: GIS, geophysics, ceramics analysis, materials analysis, glass analysis, numismatics, museum artefact cataloguing, and 3D imaging.

These classes provide the opportunity to develop professional skills which are assessed through ‘real-life’ assignments, such as professional-quality reports.

It is possible to substitute PRSS with a 20-credit language module from the Centre for Foreign Language Study.

Research Topics in Archaeology (choose either a single of double module): Research Topics are detailed courses examining particular periods, areas or themes, and are taught by the Department’s leading experts focussing on their specialist research areas. Teaching is typically delivered through a series of two-hour lectures and one-hour seminars/tutorials, usually over one term. Students choose from  two research topics with at least one related to their MA strand (eg ‘Prehistoric’, ‘Classical and Roman’ etc.). You can choose from an extensive list of more than 20 research topics across a variety of themes offered in term 1 and 2 (click here for a list of recent topics).

In consultation with the MA Archaeology Programme Director, it is possible to substitute one or both of the Research Topic modules for a guided study, where you undertake independent research under the supervision of one of our members of staff, or one of the MA modules from other courses run by the Archaeology Department, or even by another department.