Material Culture & Artefact Studies

Optional courses

The optional courses offer you the opportunity to explore and develop particular areas of more detailed study. These courses draw upon the particular interests and expertise of the contributing staff and therefore the options available may vary slightly depending on staff availability and are also subject to a minimum number of students. Please contact us to confirm likely availability of optional courses in any given year.

You need to choose three options, of which at least two are selected from the following core options:

• Lithic Analysis
• Working with pottery 
• Science-based Analysis of archaeological materials
• Early Medieval artefacts 
• Viking and Late Norse Artefacts (AD 750-1350)

You may also choose one of the following options:

• Acquiring Professional Skills, an opportunity to develop a suite of skills or experience within a particular area of interest, perhaps through an extended study of a corpus of material, or a period of learning specific skills such as artefact illustration, dating techniques, experimental replication, or petrology or chemical analysis. It may also involve working directly with an expert or specialist.
• Critical Themes in the Treatment and Display of Objects, a series of museum visits and gallery and exhibition fieldtrips during which you consider the presentation of an array of different material and develop your analysis through a semester-long advanced project.
• A module drawn from other MLitt Archaeology courses by agreement with the course convenor.
• A History of Art module such as Scientists, Antiquarians and Collectors or Collecting and Display: viewing Art in 18th century China.
• A module offered by the Humanities and Advanced Technological and Information Institute, for example: Multimedia Analysis and Design or 2D Digitisation.