skip to content
Quick links
Home

Department of Archaeology

 

Degree Structure

Degree Structure

The Archaeology Tripos - the Cambridge name for courses and examinations that lead to a Bachelor of Arts degree - builds on over 100 years of teaching in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. It gives you the broadest range of experiences and opportunities in the fields of Archaeology, Assyriology, Biological Anthropology, and Egyptology. These fields can be studied separately or combined and tailored to your own interests, through your paper choices, alongside compulsory papers (‘paper’ being the Cambridge term for a course of study leading to an examination).

You have between six and eight lectures and one or two supervisions each week. You may also have language classes, seminars and/or practicals. You’re assessed each year, through written exams and coursework. Some papers may include assessed practicals/fieldwork. Most students also write a 10,000 word dissertation in Year 3.

Year 1 (four papers) 

You pick three papers from six core archaeology, language and biological anthropology papers. They introduce you to:

Archaeology: The study of the human past, in all its social and cultural diversity.  Archaeologists investigate material remains, through which they reconstruct past patterns of adaptation and food production, socio-political institutions, economic interaction, and technology.  From the evolution of the human species to the emergence of archaic states and empires, archaeology emphasises long-term trajectories of change, highlighting questions of how and why societies change through time.

Biological Anthropology: The study of the place that humans occupy in nature, and the origin and pattern of human diversity.  With an emphasis on the interaction between biology and culture, it sits firmly between the social and biological sciences.  The teaching in this subject area provides an understanding of our evolutionary history, adaptations, genetics, behaviour, and human health and disease, with a particular emphasis on how these factors relate to social and behavioural change.

Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia: these regions housed the world's first literate complex cultures. The first-year survey course covers the history, material culture, sites, literatures and landscapes of these regions, to reach a deep and multi-disciplinary understanding of their cultures. First-year papers are also available in Egyptian and Babylonian language, which develop skills different from those in essay-based subjects.

Your fourth can be another core paper, or a paper from psychology, social anthropology, sociology or politics/international relations. There is more information of the content of the Year 1 core papers in the drop-down accordion below.
  • World Archaeology 
  • Archaeology in action 
  • Introduction to the cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia 
  • Babylonian language 1 
  • Egyptian language 1 
  • Humans in biological perspective
Years 2 and 3
You can pursue one of four single-subject tracks.
They can also be combined as Archaeology/ Biological Anthropology or Assyriology/ Egyptology. 
 
From the academic year 2021-22 onwards the undergraduate degree shall use the marks from both your second and third years to determine the degree classification. The classification weighting shall be 30% (second year) and 70% (third year).
 
See below for detailed information on course structure for each single-subject option.

Directors of Studies for Archaeology

General Enquiries to the Department

Please contact the Undergraduate Administrator

Contact Us

Postal Address:
Department of Archaeology
Downing Street
CB2 3DZ Cambridge

 

Information provided by: 

outreach@arch.cam.ac.uk

Site Privacy & Cookie Policies

Follow Us

        

 

UIS Websites

Study at Cambridge

About the University

Research at Cambridge