Archaeology and Social Anthropology

Archaeology and Social Anthropology is a combination that together constitute a comprehensive inquiry into what it means to be human, across all of history and all of the world's cultures. Archaeology recovers the material traces of the past, giving voice to people and societies that left no written records, and placing contemporary cultures in deep historical perspective. Social Anthropology studies living societies through fieldwork and ethnographic method, asking how people organise kinship, religion, economic life, and political authority in ways that challenge assumptions grounded in Western modernity.

Together they train you to think across time and culture with genuine depth.

At the University of Edinburgh, this four-year full-time programme includes a year abroad, allowing you to experience a different cultural or academic context directly. You will engage with archaeological theory and method, the history of anthropological thought, fieldwork ethics, and the wide range of societies and periods that both disciplines address. Edinburgh is one of the UK's leading universities for both archaeology and social anthropology, with particular strengths in Scottish and European prehistory and in ethnographic research from Africa, South Asia, and beyond.

The combination encourages you to move fluently between the material and the ethnographic, between the distant past and the contemporary world.

Graduates from this combination pursue careers in a wide range of fields. Museums and heritage organisations, archaeological units and consultancies, international development, NGOs, the civil service, and academic research are all well-established destinations. The cross-cultural perspective that anthropology develops is valued in journalism, diplomacy, and organisations working across national or cultural boundaries.

Many graduates go on to postgraduate study in archaeology, social anthropology, area studies, or public health, where the comparative and ethnographic skills they have developed provide a strong foundation.