Archaeology and History

Archaeology and History are perfectly matched subjects for students who want to understand the human past with both depth and breadth. History works primarily through written sources and asks analytical questions about political, social, and cultural change over time. Archaeology works with material evidence, the buildings, objects, landscapes, and biological remains that people have left behind, and brings different methods and different questions to bear on the past.

Combining them allows you to develop a far stronger understanding of the periods and places that interest you most, because you can draw on both textual and material evidence and understand how each illuminates and complicates the other.

At the University of Aberdeen, this four-year full-time programme develops your expertise in both disciplines within a Scottish university that has particular strengths in the archaeology and history of Scotland, northern Europe, and the wider ancient and medieval worlds. You will work with primary sources across both disciplines, developing skills in source analysis, fieldwork, and historical argument. A year abroad is built into the programme, giving you the opportunity to study history or archaeology in a different national context, which broadens your perspective on how the past has been understood and represented across different academic traditions.

Aberdeen's location in the northeast of Scotland, a region with an extraordinary density of prehistoric monuments and medieval structures, provides a natural laboratory for archaeological study close to the university itself.

Graduates pursue careers in museums and heritage organisations, archaeological fieldwork and consultancy, education, publishing, journalism, the civil service, and cultural administration. Many go on to postgraduate study in archaeology, history, or heritage management. The combination of textual rigour and material analysis is valued across all professions concerned with understanding the past and communicating it to the present.