Overview

Uncovering how humans have lived, built and adapted across time and place requires both broad social understanding and scientific rigour, drawing on evidence stretching from earliest prehistory to the present day. The BA (Hons) Archaeology at Durham University offers an extensive overview of world archaeology, with teaching and training spanning social and scientific methods, allowing students to develop subject and geographic specialisms suited to their own interests. Modules build in-depth knowledge of archaeology and heritage across regions including the UK, Europe, the Atlantic world, the Mediterranean, and West, Southwest and East Asia, alongside North Africa and Egypt. Advanced skills training and practical, lab- and field-based options develop expertise in areas such as fieldwork, statistical and scientific analysis, osteology, 3D modelling and museum and heritage skills. Students benefit from an exciting mix of field trips, hands-on excavation and research-led teaching, learning about archaeology across the globe from earliest toolmaking through to the rise of major states and empires. The course can also follow a route accredited by CIfA, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, giving students a recognised first step toward a career in the UK commercial archaeology sector. It suits students who want to move from consuming knowledge in the classroom to generating it in the field, developing genuine independent research skills by their final year.

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What You'll Learn

• How archaeological information is generated, theorised and interpreted, explored through British archaeology

• Practical archaeological skills, including recording, analysis and scientific techniques applied to real materials and sites

• Archaeological methods, from stratigraphic excavation and artefact analysis to geographic information systems

• World archaeology, tracing major phases of human development across Europe, Africa and Asia

• Professional training through hands-on fieldwork experience gained the summer before second year

• Research skills for working across different scales of material, from sites to individual artefacts

• Advanced, specialist skills in areas such as scientific techniques, heritage studies or archaeological science

• An extended dissertation in a chosen specialist area, developed through independent research

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Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to critically interpret archaeological evidence across multiple regions and periods, drawing on both social and scientific methods of analysis. They will be equipped to apply practical skills such as excavation, artefact analysis and scientific techniques to real archaeological materials and sites, having built this expertise through hands-on fieldwork and lab-based training. Through an extended dissertation and specialist skills modules, students will develop the ability to design and carry out independent research, structuring persuasive arguments from complex evidence. Graduates will leave with a CIfA-accredited qualification and a genuinely global understanding of archaeology, well prepared for careers in the heritage sector, museums, commercial archaeology or further postgraduate research.