Archaeology

Archaeology is the study of the human past through its material remains. Where history works primarily with documents, archaeology recovers and interprets the physical traces that past societies have left behind: structures, artefacts, environmental evidence, human remains, and the landscapes in which these things are found. It spans the full range of human history, from the earliest stone tools made millions of years ago to the analysis of twentieth-century material culture, and it is practised everywhere on earth.

The discipline demands both meticulous practical skill and a sophisticated interpretive intelligence, since the evidence is always incomplete and the questions are always contestable.

At the University of Reading, this three-year full-time programme includes a sandwich year, a year abroad, and a work placement, giving it a very strong practical and international dimension. The sandwich year allows you to spend a substantial period in a professional archaeological or heritage context, gaining field or laboratory experience that complements your academic study. The year abroad opens the possibility of studying or working in another country, which is particularly valuable for a discipline that is genuinely global in scope and whose methods and interpretive traditions vary interestingly across national contexts.

Reading has strong research expertise across prehistoric, Roman, and later periods, and the university's location gives you access to an exceptionally rich regional archaeological record.

You will develop practical skills in excavation, survey, finds analysis, environmental archaeology, and the use of digital tools in fieldwork and laboratory settings, alongside theoretical and methodological understanding of how archaeological knowledge is produced and how it is contested. Writing clearly about material evidence, constructing interpretive arguments, and engaging with the ethics of working with past human communities are all central to what the degree teaches.

Graduates in archaeology work in commercial field archaeology, in museums and heritage organisations, in local authority planning and heritage roles, and in academic research. The combination of practical experience from the placement and year abroad, and analytical skills developed through the degree, makes graduates well prepared for the varied environments in which professional archaeologists work. Postgraduate study at masters or doctoral level is a route for those who want to specialise in a particular period, region, or method, or pursue an academic career.