Chapter 14: Studying Archaeology
Studying Archaeology
Weblinks
14.0 General opportunities
TORC provides a database of courses at all levels in the UK
http://www.torc.org.uk/
14.1 Studying archaeology below university level
Exam syllabuses:
http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/gceasa/arc.html
14.2 Studying archaeology at university
There are league tables for universities. Often two quite different ones are cited. One is a research exercise where departments were graded out of 24 for the quality of their research. This tells you something about the quality of the lecturing teams academically and the resources at their disposal. The methodology favours the richer universities because they are able to support more research activity. However, you may not be taught by these top researchers as an undergraduate because they are busy doing research, so check out who is taking the courses you hope to do.
The second element is teaching. This is not as rigorous a system as the Ofsted one for schools and FE colleges but it does give you some idea of where students have been most satisfied.
The current direction of quality assessments in HE will make it more difficult to draw comparisons so do your own research carefully.
‘Good University Guide’ is at:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/good_university_guide/
The reports on the different departments up to 2002 are at:
http://www.qaa.ac.uk/reviews/reports/archive/oldSubjReports.asp?subjID=4
Unistats allow you to compare universities by whether graduates get jobs and how students rate the courses:
http://www.unistats.com
The National Student Survey is at:
http://www.thestudentsurvey.com/
UK university links:
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/info/univ.asp
The Higher Education Academy for Archaeology (useful for teachers) is at:
http://www.hca.heacademy.ac.uk/archaeology/index.php?section=archaeology
14.3 Individual archaeology departments
- Aberdeen http://www.abdn.ac.uk/archaeology/
- Bangor http://www.bangor.ac.uk/history/index.php.en
- Birmingham http://www.arch-ant.bham.ac.uk/bufau/index.htm
- Bournemouth http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/conservation/
- Bradford http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/archsci/
- Bristol http://www.bristol.ac.uk/archanth/
- Cambridge http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/
- Central Lancashire http://www.uclan.ac.uk/facs/science/archaeology/
- Chester http://www.chester.ac.uk/historyandarchaeology/index.html
- Durham http://www.dur.ac.uk/archaeology/
- Edinburgh http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/archaeology/
- Exeter http://www.sogaer.ex.ac.uk/archaeology/
- Glasgow http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/archaeology/index.html
- Lampeter http://www.lamp.ac.uk/archanth/
- Leicester http://www.le.ac.uk/archaeology/
- Liverpool http://www.liv.ac.uk/sace/
- London Birkbeck http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hca/
- London Institute of Archaeology http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/
- London SOAS http://www.soas.ac.uk/art/
- Manchester http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/subjectareas/archaeology/
- Nottingham http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/archaeology/
- Newcastle http://www.ncl.ac.uk/historical/research/archaeology/
- Oxford http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/home
- Queens University, Belfast http://www.qub.ac.uk/arcpal/
- Reading http://www.reading.ac.uk/archaeology/
- Sheffield http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/
- Southampton http://www.arch.soton.ac.uk/
- Winchester http://www.wkac.ac.uk/archaeology/index.htm
- York http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/arch/welcome.htm
14.4 Stepping up to degree level
14.5 Archaeological publishers
Routledge:
http://www.routledge.com/
Tempus and Sutton Books:
http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/
14.6 Archaeological booksellers
Oxbow Books:
http://www.oxbowbooks.com/
Castle Bookshop (England):
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/fe63/index.htm
14.7 Archaeological journals
- Antiquity http://antiquity.ac.uk
- Assemblage (Sheffield) http://www.shef.ac.uk/~assem/
- Archaeology (USA) http://www.archaeology.org/
- Current Archaeology http://www.archaeology.co.uk/
- Listings http://www.discoveringarchaeology.com/
- The Prehistoric Society http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/index.html
- The IFA Journal http://www.archaeologists.net/modules/icontent/inPages/docs/ta/ta59.pdf
- Mesolithic Miscellany (York) http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/arch/Mesolithic/index.htm
- Journal of Archaeological Science http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/as
- European Journal of Archaeology http://eja.sagepub.com/
- Anthropology.net http://anthropology.net/
- BBC Archaeology http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/archaeology/index.shtml
Archaeological news stories and articles are also found in the following publications:
- National Geographic http://www.nationalgeographic.com/index.html
- Science Direct http://www.sciencedirect.com/
- New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com/home.ns
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) http://www.aaas.org/
- Proceedings of the National Academy for Science http://www.pnas.org/contents-by-date.0.shtml
- BBC Science http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/default.stm
- News in Science http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/ancient/default.htm
- Scientific American http://assistivemedia.org/publications/scientific_american.html