Archaeological Research

Entry requirements

Applicants for this course should have achieved a UK High 2:1 Honours Degree.

Months of entry

October

Course content

Benefiting students who have a clearly-defined project in mind and want to go on to PhD work, this MPhil programme will help develop your research skills in archaeology through a combination of independent and supervised research.

You will learn about the research process while reviewing existing work, formulating a research project, collecting and analysing the data. There are also opportunities for you to enhance your writing, presentation, and argument framing and analysis skills through workshops and seminars.

Structure

The MPhil in Archaeological Research spans 10 months and includes three components:

G01 Graduate Research Skills – counts for 5% of the final mark

Research Paper – up to 6,000 words, counts for 25% of the final mark

Dissertation – up to 25,000 words, counts for 70% of the final mark

The research skills module gives all students on an archaeology MPhil a grounding in research and prepares them for putting together in-depth pieces of work around a central question or discussion. It involves participating in seminars on topics such as planning fieldwork, research ethics, writing and illustrating research, and presenting your work. For this module, you will prepare a short research proposal and present it to the group.

Working with your supervisor, you will formulate your dissertation topic, carry out research, and write it up. This forms an extended, independent, and original piece of research. It is a chance to develop your own research project at substantial length, allowing conceptual, methodological, and empirical exploration – not infrequently, it results in a publishable piece of research or a solid foundation for a PhD project.