Ancient History and Archaeology (BA)

Contemporary archaeology operates within a broad remit: its traditional focus on understanding a deep past is now supplemented by studies of more recent material cultures, and issues of heritage, representation and the politics of the past. All of these d...

Fieldwork is an integral part of the archaeological process and we want all our students to experience directly the generation of primary data by means of field and related practical activities. At the core of this module, therefore, is participation in a...

Philosophy has always progressed by being aware of its past, and it has been said that the legacy of the ancient Greek thinkers to Western philosophy is nothing less than Western philosophy itself. The ancients invented our subject, and Plato and Aristotl...

From the legendary tales of the Trojan War up to the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, warfare played a central role in ancient Greek history and society. This module allows you to examine ancient Greek warfare from a range of different sources a...

This module focusses on the city of Rome and its development from its early foundation through to the third century AD. It explores the evidence for one of the most important cities of the ancient world, which at its height was home to approximately a mil...

The disparate body of literature collected together under the title 1001 Nights, more popularly known as the Arabian Nights, is set primarily in the cities of the medieval Middle East, including Baghdad and Basra in Iraq, Cairo in Egypt and Damascus in Sy...

This module examines the variation within the mammalian skeleton from an evolutionary and functional perspective. Additionally, it gives an overview of the main methodological and theoretical issues in the retrieval, treatment and interpretation of bone f...

The development of absolute dating methods has had the most profound effect on our understanding of the past. All self-respecting archaeologists should have a basic grounding in radiocarbon dating, but many other dating techniques exist and are appropriat...

Archaeology is an immensely data-rich activity that records the characteristics of sites, landscapes and artefacts, sometimes in great detail. Making sense of that data often relies on quantitative or statistical methods to identify patterns, associations...

This module explores human evolution in the context of expanding and contracting populations. We shall review the evolutionary landscape and the big questions that face archaeologists. We shall cover the hominin fossil record, learning about the major spe...

This module will discuss Chinese history from its mythical beginnings to the 19th century (the time when China encountered the West). We will encounter famous figures like the philosopher Confucius, discuss the origins of the Silk Road and the Great Wall,...

Biological science tells us what items in our world are potentially edible, but culture decides what constitutes food. Culture informs us as to whether a specific item is appropriate, appetising, valued, desirable, prohibited, restricted, staple or medici...

The 10,000 years from the end of the last glacial to the emergence of Roman as a major European power were marked by dramatic changes in subsistence, social organisation, material worlds and cosmology. This module provides an introduction to the major the...

The aim of every language course at the University is to enable you to communicate in your target language (TL) at that particular level and in your particular area of interest. We use the word ‘communicate’ in its widest sense, meaning that you will not ...

The aim of every language course at the University is to enable you to communicate in your target language (TL) at that particular level and in your particular area of interest. We use the word ‘communicate’ in its widest sense, meaning that you will not ...

This course aims to give students a sound introduction to the way archaeology is carried out underwater.

What are myths and what do they do? In “Myth and the Ancient World” you will explore how the Ancient Greeks used myths to make sense of the world and their position in it. The module covers a time span of some 900 years, from the time of Homer and Hesiod ...

The first century CE saw the rise of a new world religion that was to have an ever changing and at times turbulent history up to today. This module will explore the historical origins of Christianity and the contexts from which it emerged. In particular, ...

For most people even today Nero was one of the ‘bad’ emperors (he killed his mother), and Caligula was mad and depraved (he wanted to appoint his favourite horse as consul, and committed incest with his sisters); but the categorisation of emperors along m...

Blood, violence, terror, raids, pirates, rape and pillage are just some of the words associated with the Vikings in both the medieval and modern imagination. Their fearsome reputation is underlined by nicknames such as ‘Blood Axe' and ‘Skull-splitter', bu...

The Roman empire has held the imagination of successive generations. Conquest by Rome brought social, cultural and economic change to large swathes of what is now Europe, the Middle East and north Africa. Never before or after did these parts of the world...

The dissertation is a key component of your degree; in it you have a chance to show the skills of analysis and research you have learned during the three years of your programme.

The dissertation is a key component of your degree, and the culmination of your programme of study. It provides an opportunity to demonstrate the skills of planning, research, data collation, analysis, and communication that you have learned during your p...

Wars have been fought throughout the history of mankind. Ethical concerns that they raised, or, in other words, the rights and wrongs of waging war, have been discussed from time immemorial. War has often been seen as an evil, a necessary evil, to be avoi...

Seafaring lies at the heart of human activity across the world and has taken place from the earliest times to the present day. Reflecting this, in recent years the study of seafaring has become an increasingly important area in our understanding of the hu...

Ancient History goes beyond Greece and Rome. The ancient world was incredibly diverse, inhabited by different cultures, religions, and societies which were closely connected and left their mark on each other, through interaction, conflict, and exchange. I...

This module explores the Roman Empire, but from the perspective of those who resisted it, fought it, and rebelled against it. The study of the ancient world, throughout its different periods, is greatly influenced by Rome. Starting from its expansion duri...

This module explores human evolution in terms of physiological, social and cultural adaptations. It explores human ecology in the broad sense, combining not just cultural and social variability, but also physiological adaptations in past and present-day h...

This module explores cinema’s relationship to the past, whether distant, as in that of ancient Greece, Rome or Egypt, or from a more recent history.

This module aims to acquaint you with Geographic Information Systems including their use for mapping and analysing archaeological sites and landscapes, and to explain the broader context of their application to a range of archaeological research and manag...

Iron Age Europe witnessed the divergence of a ‘classical' Mediterranean world, whose culture included such features as states, towns, coinage and literacy, from a ‘barbarian' world to the north, where these features developed only much later, if at all. T...

This module examines the major social, economic and cultural developments that took place in England during the period between c. 800 and c. 1100 AD. It makes use of evidence from diverse disciplines, including the study of documentary, archaeological, ar...

The aim of every language course at the University is to enable you to communicate in your target language (TL) at that particular level and in your particular area of interest. We use the word ‘communicate’ in its widest sense, meaning that you will not ...

The towns in which the Romans lived are some of the most familiar features of the Roman world. Although they seem to look and feel like modern towns, they actually worked in quite different ways, a reflection of the fact that ancient Roman society was dis...

The extraction and characterization of ancient molecules and the measurement of stable and radioactive isotopes has revolutionized archaeology over the past two decades and remains at the cutting edge of archaeological science. From the the identification...

The module provides an introduction to the history and archaeology of ancient Egypt. The module provides a broad sweep of Egyptian history from the Predynastic through to later periods. It introduces aspects of death, burial and commemoration, compares an...

By the end of this module you will be familiar with digital photogrammetry in archaeology and the visualisation of photogrammetric datasets. You will also have a basic grounding in key methods in photogrammetry and be able to create accurate and detailed ...

In this module we will examine how knowledge about the past is presented in museum exhibition and display. We will look at current practices in exhibition design and discuss the contemporary literature on communicating heritage to a range of audiences. Yo...

The culmination of your history degree at Southampton will be the completion of your final year independent research dissertation (HIST3021 for History programmes or HIST3210 for Ancient History programmes). In this module you will learn how to apply the ...

The development of geophysical survey methods has provided archaeologists with a wholly new approach to buried archaeological remains allowing - in some circumstances - plans of entire archaeological sites to be obtained prior to any excavation. The use o...

The Neolithic period heralds some of the most momentous changes in human history; it is the period when prehistoric people began to live in permanent settlements and adopted agriculture. In Britain, this period is dominated by rich evidence for large monu...