The Department of Archaeology at Durham has a world-class teaching and research reputation. We are regularly ranked as one of the top two Archaeology departments in the UK and one of the top six globally. We run fieldwork projects across the world and our staff are passionate about sharing their expertise with students. We run six undergraduate programmes and six taught postgraduate programmes and have an academic community of some 400 staff and students combined.

Our research and engagement, as well as our teaching, stretches from excavation and heritage protection work in Nepal and Sri Lanka, to our field training excavations at Auckland Castle, Co. Durham and we use our cutting-edge laboratories and expertise to take forward research and teaching on internationally significant projects and collections. We also work closely with staff in two Durham University museums, the Oriental Museum and the Museum of Archaeology. These house some outstanding archaeological collections, including Chinese ceramics and Middle and Near Eastern antiquities. We also collaborate closely with museums and heritage sites across the North East region, Britain and increasingly engage with international partners as well.

Our portfolio is diverse and dynamic, and we are actively developing our teaching programmes to reach new UK and world audiences and evaluating the potential of Continuing Professional Development courses and summer schools in the heritage and conservation sectors. We host a commercial archaeology unit in the Department and a range of lab-based commercial operations centred on our applied and scientific research expertise.

Conservation has been an important part of the department's academic and commercial offerings for nearly 50 years and our MA in Conservation of Archaeological and Museum Objects is a thriving programme that attracts students from around the world.

Archaeology is committed to research-led and small group teaching. The Department achieved 2nd place nationally in overall course satisfaction in NSS 2022. For more information, please visit our Department pages at www.durham.ac.uk/archaeology