Anthropology and Archaeology PhD

University of Bristol

MPhil: a standalone, one-year (full-time) research degree. Students will undertake their own research project, concluding in the submission of a 25,000 word dissertation. Students may have the option to audit units from our taught master's programmes if they are relevant to their research.

PhD: a research project undertaken across three years (full-time, plus a writing up period), culminating in an 80,000 word thesis. As well as having the option to audit taught units, there may be the potential for PhD students to teach units themselves from their second year of study onwards.

The Department of Anthropology and Archaeology has an international 'four-field' approach, combining archaeology with evolutionary, social and linguistic anthropology. Our key strengths lie in our integrated approaches to understanding cultural, biological and social change: the spread of peoples, their ideas and material artefacts. We focus particularly on adaptation, adversity and globalisation.

Our research spans from earliest prehistory to the modern day. Field research takes place in the UK, as well as Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Singapore, Slovenia, Tanzania, Turkey, Venezuela, Vietnam, and elsewhere.

We are well equipped to undertake anthropological and archaeological fieldwork, including excavation, and we have world-class radiocarbon dating, isotopic and micro-imaging laboratories on site. We foster partnerships with professional institutions nationally and locally to provide additional collaborative opportunities for our students (e.g. with the Royal Anthropological Institute Ethnographic Film Festival, UNESCO City of Film, and Bristol Museum and Art Gallery).

In addition, we draw on expertise and facilities from across the University (eg Brigstow Institute; Cabot Institute for the Environment; Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research; Jean Golding Institute). We also work closely with institutes and centres in the Faculties of Social Sciences and Law (Migration Mobilities Bristol; the Centre for Environmental Humanities; and the Centre for Health, Humanities and Science), as well as the Faculty of Science (eg Bristol Isotope Group; Organic Geochemistry Unit).

Accreditation by the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA), working in partnership with University Archaeology UK (UAUK), recognises academic programmes which provide students with appropriate workplace skills relevant to both a career in the historic environment and CIfA membership at Practitioner grade.