MA Material Culture and Experimental Archaeology

This course gives you key analytical skills in practical and theoretical approaches used to study material culture. In experimental archaeology, you get hands-on experience reconstructing ancient technologies and crafts as a way of better understanding the properties of different materials and how objects and buildings were made. Material culture studies involve working with and analysing objects and the materials from which they are made. You will explore objects and materials from different periods, giving you a fantastic insight into the archaeological record as well as developing skills for your future career.

Analysis of objects and materials is at the heart of archaeological practice, as well as museum curation and conservation. You will explore environmental contexts and important conservation questions such as preservation and decay. Digital and biomolecular methods are both strengths of York, and are increasingly being used in artefact studies. Our course allows you to choose modules that excite you across prehistory or historical periods and methodological specialisms.

YEAR Centre, state-of-the art PalaeoHub, and our BioArCh laboratories.

You will have the opportunity to get involved in public outreach and work with local partners like the York Archaeological Trust, Yorkshire Museums and the Castle Museum.

Get hands-on with the past with a Masters degree that teaches you all about artefacts and materials, exploring questions such as how objects were made, used and valued by past societies.