How we teach you
'There is excellent variation in teaching methods at both undergraduate and postgraduate level...and the students clearly enjoy and value the degree programmes offered' (Teaching Quality Review Panel, 2006)
As well as lectures and seminars, our small group teaching offers you the opportunity for hands-on practical and laboratory sessions, working with archaeological materials. Our varied teaching methods encourage the development of communication, presentation, teamwork and problem-solving skills. We place considerable emphasis on vocational training in archaeology and run a dedicated training and research excavation at the Roman town of Silchester. The Field School is a key module in our undergraduate degrees and provides students with a sound knowledge of archaeological field techniques as well as teamwork, numeracy and IT skills. Independent study skills are particularly developed through the original research dissertation in the final year.
Fieldwork
You will gain excellent training in a wide range of fieldwork skills (including excavation, surveying, planning, and finds processing) at our Departmental Field School at the Roman Town of Silchester:
'…the Silchester Field School plays a central role in undergraduate teaching, providing engagement with a wide range of field and analytical skills, as well as developing transferable and personal skills and promoting social cohesion of the undergraduate body' (Teaching Quality Review Panel, 2006)
You will also have the opportunity to work on other field projects, both in the UK and abroad, particularly during your second summer vacation. These projects cover a wide range of periods and places, including these examples since 2006:
- Bartlow Hills Roman burial mounds
- Iron Age/Roman Sanctuary, Burgundy
- Later Prehistoric Monuments of Aberdeenshire Broomend of Crichie
- Inner Hebrides Archaeological Project
- Neolithic Village, Wadi Faynan
- Anglo-Saxon Lyminge, Kent
Hands-on artefact-based learning
Here at Reading we have excellent teaching collections of artefacts and human remains, which underpin much of our practical teaching and provide you with the opportunity to handle and learn about the material remains which underpin all archaeological enquiries.
Our teaching collections include Roman pottery and glassware, Iron Age coinage, replica lithic (stone) artefacts from early and later prehistory, human skeletons with a wide range of traumas and diseases and a large range of animal species.
Through Reading's Centre of Excellence in the Teaching and Learning of Undergraduate Research Skills (CETL-AURS) Archaeology has a new Resource Room, housing our teaching collections and featuring state-of-the-art audio-visual and visualisation media to enhance our teaching with the material culture of the past.