Archaeology (BA) - 2012/2013 entry

All students take a foundation module in study skills and an introduction to materials and objects. You will also take survey modules, covering long periods of ancient and medieval archaeology, and will then progress to study in greater depth. You choose advanced thematic modules, which may include more specialised archaeological approaches.

• Year 1: take the compulsory Study Skills module and two Group 1 modules, including either Materials and Objects or Discovering Archaeology.
• Year 2: take the compulsory Archaeological Theory module and two Group 1 modules, including either Materials and Objects or Discovering Archaeology.
• Year 3: take the compulsory Bibliography module and either two Group 2 modules or one Group 2 and one Group 3 module.
• Year 4: take either two Group 2 modules or one Group 2 and one Group 3 module (depending on modules taken in Year 3) and write a dissertation.

Group 1 modules

• Archaeology of the Roman Empire 
• Discovering the Past: Methods and Practice in Archaeology
• From Ancient to Medieval Societies
• Materials and Objects in Archaeology
• The Archaeology of Greece
• The Prehistoric Mediterranean.

Group 2 and Group 3 modules

• Building the Middle Ages: Urbanism and Architecture
• Cultural Interaction in the Archaic Greek World
• Geoarchaeology
• Geographical Information Systems
• Living in the Middle Ages
• Pompeii – From its Beginnings to Last Days
• Power and Self-Representation in the Greek and Hellenistic Worlds
• Religious and Political Space in the Classical and Hellenistic Worlds
• Responses to Rome
• The Past in the Present: Classical Archaeology in the Modern World.

We offer an MA Archaeology and MA Classical Archaeology.

Graduates go on to careers as archaeologists or in related fields, such as in museums or galleries, building conservation and education.

Teaching

All formal teaching takes place between 6pm–9pm, Monday to Friday. Staff are available to provide tutorial and general help at other times, as they have a full-time commitment to the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology. Most students will have to attend College for only two, or at the most three, evenings a week during term time.

Unlike other colleges and universities, Birkbeck teaches three equal terms of 11 weeks each, in the knowledge that mature students are often parents whose responsibilities are particularly heavy during the school holidays. Check our term dates.

All undergraduate students in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology are assigned a personal tutor, with whom they can discuss their academic progress and any problems they encounter during the course.

Handbook

Download the programme handbook.

• Applications from January.
• Interviews usually from March.