This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
Excavation-based fieldwork is a fundamental component of archaeological and biological anthropological research that allows us to understand the evolution and day-to-day behaviour of past humans. It also provides skill-sets relevant to multiple career paths in archaeological, anthropological, heritage and research sectors. This module will teach students how to undertake archaeological and anthropological excavations through hands-on experience at an active field site together with intensive training in appropriate techniques, including artefact identification and preservation, fossil and bone identification and preservation, excavation techniques and site recording, and public engagement through outreach activities. By the end of the module, individuals should have a detailed understanding of how to undertake modern archaeological and anthropological excavations, and a broad understanding of excavation techniques and analytical procedures relevant to multiple archaeological sub-disciplines (Palaeolithic archaeology, osteoarchaeology, zooarchaeology, among others). More widely, this module will prepare students to undertake work within commercial archaeology units, as part of archaeological and palaeontological research, and within artefact-based heritage work (e.g. museum curation).
Total contact hours 91 hours (10 x 7 hour days on-site, 3 x 7 hour days of skills training)
Private study hours 59
Total study hours 150
Resting 2022-23
Optional to the following programmes:
• BSc Anthropology
• BSc Human Biology and Behaviour
Also available as an elective module
Site report and literature review 2,500 words 50%
Popular news report 1,500 words 30%
Leading public engagement 20%
Reassessment methods:
Like for like
Leading a public engagement event is not repeatable and so will be replaced with a detailed plan for a day of archaeological public engagement (1000 words)
Kipfer, B.A. 2007. The Archaeologists Fieldwork Companion. Blackwell Publishing
Renfew, C. and Bahn, P. 2015. Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice. Thames and Hudson
Pettitt, P. and White, M. 2012. The British Palaeolithic: Human Societies at the Edge of the
Pleistocene World. Routledge, London
Erdman, K. 2019. Public Engagement and Education: Developing and Fostering Stewardship for an
Archaeological Future. Berghahn, London
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