Archaeology at the University of Manchester The Department of Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology

Studying archaeology at the University of Manchester means you are part of the department of Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology and Egyptology (CAHAE), the largest of its kind in the country. This offers the unparalleled opportunity to draw upon staff expertise in material culture analysis, ancient history, language and literature, social complexity, ancient writing, belief systems and funerary rites, monuments and landscapes, as you explore the parts of the past that truly fascinate you.

Our research-led teaching offers you the opportunity to explore humanity, from its prehistoric origins to industrialisation and globalisation, and to consider key challenges of modern society - from climate change and new technologies, to gender identities, cultural interactions and conflict. Through scientific analysis and interpretation of artefacts, ancient texts and inscriptions, architecture, human remains and landscapes, our courses have the study of past people at their heart, ranging geographically from Egypt and the Near East, across the Mediterranean, to the British Isles and North-West Europe.

Our students explore artefacts, architecture and ancient texts, handling our object collections within our well-equipped laboratories, getting exclusive access to the archives and expertise of the Manchester Museum (including one of the best Egyptology collections in the country), and going on fieldtrips to awe-inspiring sites. Use our dedicated collections, laboratories, study spaces and libraries to pursue our students’ interests, and they even develop new understanding of the artefacts they see in lectures and books by making them in our Experimental Archaeology group. Our students are supported by our award-winning teachers and world-leading researchers, and guest speakers from across the globe, to become part of our interdisciplinary community that is passionate about understanding the ancient world.

Fieldwork training is also integral to all of our courses: past students have worked on sites of global important including Stonehenge, Star Carr and Easter Island, and discovered everything from the earliest British Mesolithic art to a Viking boat burial in Scotland. This summer, our students are part of research teams excavating Neolithic burial mounds and ritual landscapes in Herefordshire, the material traces of hunter-gatherers living in Britain after the Ice age in Yorkshire, an incredible landscape in Western Scotland with evidence of activity from the Neolithic to the present day, and an Early-Middle Bronze Age settlement on Cyprus. We firmly believe being in the field is the best place to teach students how to excavate-that’s why all of our students get at least 4 weeks of excavation as part of their degree.

You can study Archaeology with us as a Single Honours subject, or combine it with Ancient History, History, Anthropology or Film Studies as a Joint Honours degree.