Course details
On this course you will be taught by a range of staff with relevant expertise and knowledge appropriate to the content of the unit. This will include senior academic staff, qualified professional practitioners, demonstrators, technicians and research students. You will also benefit from regular guest lectures from industry.
How you will be assessed
You will be assessed by coursework culminating in your final year research project, and you will also undertake group work and written exams. The assessment methods for each unit can be found in the programme specification for your course.
Year 1
Core units
AAFS Study Skills: You will learn the fundamental skills needed for any scientist to work with a range of field and lab data. This unit will provide you with the knowledge to perform statistical analysis, create charts, graphs & maps, and write clear and concise reports using appropriate software packages.
Ancient Peoples & Places: You will be introduced to the key thematic studies in archaeology concerning the evolution and development of ancient humans, changing technologies and material culture, and the organisation and development of past societies. You will be introduced to a range of archaeological, fossil, genetic and ethnographic evidence and develop core skills of analysis, interpretation, and reasoning using archaeological data.
Human Anatomy & Physiology: This unit will give you an overview of the structure and function of the human body, and you will be introduced to the principal concepts underlying pathophysiological processes that disturb health. Key biological and physiological practical techniques relevant to measuring human health and disease are covered, together with the skills you will need for the analysis and presentation of the resulting data.
Introduction to Social Anthropology: During this unit student-centred activities such as discussions and short presentations will enable you to demonstrate your growing knowledge of the historical emergence and development of anthropology and some of the key theoretical and empirical debates within social anthropology. You will also be able to gain insights into social anthropological perspectives and have the knowledge and confidence to debate contemporary world problems and issues.
Introduction to Social Theory: During this unit, you will be introduced to key social theory that informs classical and contemporary sociology and anthropology. Such theories are embedded in the historical and philosophical context of the analysis of Western society and its social forms. You will discuss the concept of ‘structuration’ and how it may give rise to societal and personal level explanations of social processes and social behavior and the contribution of theories arising out of the competing theoretical perspectives and what they may say about various themes and issues, such as what they say about deviance or poverty
Studying Ancient Materials: You will learn to handle a range of artefacts and other archaeological materials including ceramics, textiles, foodstuffs, glass, metals and building materials. You will be able to observe and record their characteristics and their importance to the interpretation of people and societies.
Year 2
Core units
Becoming Human: What makes us (as humans) unique? Where did our species come from? Starting from the divergence of the human lineage from that of other apes, this unit will demonstrate how a wide variety of different lines of evidence can inform the way in which we became human. You will learn how archaeologists and anthropologists interpret the fossil and archaeological evidence to understand the ways in which our ancestors and related species lived and how this changed over time. A key focus throughout will be on the relationship between the biological and social environments for evolution, and how the interaction between them influenced the evolution not only of our distinctive biological life histories, subsistence and foraging patterns but also our social life and culture, in the form of technology, material culture, language and symbolism.
Themes in Archaeology & Anthropology: If there is such a thing as ‘human nature’, then why are cultures across the world so different? Many things and practices that we think of as ‘natural’ or biologically given – for example, bodies, eating, shelter and the environment – are in fact thought about or performed in very different ways in different cultures across the globe today and in the past. How and why have cultural differences come about, and why might they change? This unit will introduce you to the diversity of contemporary and past human cultures around the world and to some of the methods anthropologists and archaeologists use to study these differences.
Growing up & Growing old: This unit explores sociological and anthropological perspectives and theories of childhood, youth and aging. It examines the variety and change in which the different categories of the life course, as well as how the transition from one stage to the next have been imagined, marked and constructed in different cultures and throughout history. It explores what impact such constructions have on people’s experiences of growing up and growing old. Drawing particularly on ethnographic studies from different parts of the world, the unit will explore the diverse experiences of children, young and old people in relation to, for example, economic or social circumstances including class, education and employment
Archaeological Science: This unit will develop your understanding of how thematic archaeological research questions may be addressed through the use of archaeological scientific techniques and approaches. Knowledge of case studies will be developed to promote understanding of the potential applications of archaeological science to investigate the behaviour of past human societies.
Option units
Semester 2 (choose 2):
Environmental & Societal Challenges: This unit will consider the relationships between humanity and the environment and is relevant to any student wanting to further their knowledge of science policy and application. You will be introduced to some of the big challenges faced by society today that stem from the impact of humanity on the earth system and you will gain a critical awareness of your own role and the role of NGOs.
Understanding Cultures: You will explore classic and contemporary debates about how culture should be understood, theorised and studied. You will examine how far sociological, anthropological and criminological concepts of culture differ from more commonplace understandings, a discrepancy particularly crystallised in cultures considered controversial or ‘deviant’ from an external perspective (e.g. ‘gang cultures’, ‘cultures of violence’ or cultures defining the body, personhood, life and death in ways that are different from our own). You will learn how culture shapes, and is shaped by, social, historical and economic conditions as well as learning how to evaluate how our understanding of different identities and practices across the world can be enhanced by approaching the study of culture in a theoretically and criticially informed way.
Understanding Globalisation: In this module, you will explore debates about globalisation within sociology and social science disciplines. You will consider how far present day global integration and interconnection differs from that of previous historical eras. Through a series of topic areas, you will be able to critically investigate global institutions and transnational corporations, and examine a series of global processes and flows of people, ideas, money and commodities in the present day. This will enrich your perspectives on what it means to be a ‘global citizen’, by encouraging critical reflection on issues such as transnational migration and work in the global economy, as well as issues of global social and economic justice and ecological sustainability.
Rome & Barbarian Europe: You will develop an understanding of the history, archaeological impact, key sites, monuments, belief-systems, artistic expression, political complexity, fashions and environment of the Roman Empire, from the 1st to the 7th Century AD in European, African and Asian contexts. The interrelationship between the classical world and that of so-called ‘barbarian’ (Celtic/Germanic/Scandinavian/Slavic) people of north and eastern Europe will be studied.
Societies of prehistoric Europe: Keynote lectures are supported by discussion sessions to provide you with an introduction to the study of early farming societies in Temperate Europe and the northern Mediterranean (c.6000-800 BC). They will bring together evidence of settlement patterns to provide a sound understanding of how these societies inhabited and manipulated their environment. You will be required to undertake a considerable amount of supportive research in this unit.
Please note that option units require minimum numbers in order to run and may only be available on a semester by semester basis. They may also change from year to year.
Optional Placement Year
You may choose to complete an optional 30-week minimum work placement which can be carried out anywhere in the world. The placement year offers a chance to gain experience and make contacts for the future. Alternatively you can complete a short 5 week placement and complete your course in three years.
Final Year
Core units
Cultural Ecology: Humans share their habitats with a multitude of other organisms and have to adapt to a variety of existing or changing circumstances of the natural environment. However, humans themselves change these basic conditions by using techniques, agreements, rules and modes of organisation in order to facilitate long-term settlement in their habitat. They form and manipulate their environment as part of adaptation strategies within the framework of their personal interests and collective goals. Adaptations of human populations to their respective habitats thus always embrace cultural strategies and their biological conditions and consequences. By considering an ecosystems approach, this unit will give an overview and discuss of the diversity and correspondence of biocultural solutions, which human populations have developed to co-ordinate these two sides of their life support system.
Independent Research Project: The Independent Research Project provides you with an opportunity to gain experience of research in a topic of your choice relevant to your degree and to demonstrate your ability to report that research. Such experience is considered essential for those students interested in pursuing academic and/or professional research at a higher level of responsibility and achievement.
Option units
Semester 1 (choose one):
Anthropology of International Intervention: This unit aims to familiarise you with critical anthropological debates on international intervention policies and practices. By introducing you to existing, multi-sited ethnographic research into international and local organisations and actors, their experiences, practices, norms and perceptions as well as into the transformations of ‘Western’ intervention paradigms on the ground, the unit will provide the basis for scholarly criticism of real-life international policy transfer in global asymmetric relations of power. It will foster critical and creative thinking for improving professional, ethically-aware future practices in the applications of anthropological, sociological and policy expertise.
Science of Human Remains: Practical lab sessions will allow you to examine skeletal material of modern humans in archaeological and forensic contexts. You will examine the ways in which disease can inform health status in past societies and how disease, trauma and skeletal pathology can identify individuals in a forensic context.
Seekers, Believers & Iconoclasts - Sociology of Thought: This unit explores the concept of science as a sociological phenomenon contextualised within a cultural and social analysis, as well as a philosophical and historical one. Science is considered as a social organisation dedicated to the production of knowledge that is accepted within a corpus of knowledge as conforming to that governing scientific epistemology. This position is contrasted with bodies of knowledge that lie beyond these rules and governance.
Semester 2 (choose one):
Animals & Society: This unit aims to provide you with a detailed critical understanding of human interactions with animals in Britain from the Palaeolithic through to the early Post-medieval period. These interactions include the exploitation of animals for meat and other products and how animals were incorporated into burial practices and other rituals.
Food, Culture & Travel: This unit will enable you to understand the issues surrounding food and its role within particular cultures and tourism destinations. You will analyse the socio-cultural, environmental, health, economic, ethical and political issues impacting upon food in a variety of geographical contexts. Case studies will be used to demonstrate how particular food commodities, social networking and behaviours affect commercial tourism and hospitality as well as social and domestic cultures.
Primate Behavioural Ecology: This unit will provide you with an understanding of how primate behaviour can be interpreted from an evolutionary viewpoint and how human and non-human primates’ behavioural strategies are adapted to the environment (social and ecological) in which they live. The unit will stimulate discussion and the critical analysis of theories by a combination of lectures, directed reading and discussion sessions which will involve the analysis of scientific articles.
Please note that option units require minimum numbers in order to run and may only be available on a semester by semester basis. They may also change from year to year.
