Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

This module aims to provide students with an advanced understanding of social, cultural, and economic developments in the British Isles from c. 4000 BC to c. 1500 BC. The module will explore changes in how and where people lived, what and how they ate, what they did with their dead, how they moved during their lifetimes and how they interacted with one another at differing scales, the places they built and altered, the things that shaped their daily lives, and their understandings of life, death, community and the cosmos.

The module also aims to provide students with a detailed and sophisticated knowledge of current debates in the interpretation of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Britain - from how we interpret the art and monuments of the period to how we assess the evidence used to infer dramatic changes in diet and/or populations in some centuries. The module aims to stimulate students to reflect on how arguments about the interpretation of the prehistoric past are produced, and evaluate the contribution made by different approaches to various kinds of archaeological evidence.

The majority of the module will focus on Britain, but some sessions will also include parts of Ireland, and throughout reference will be made to how the British evidence fits in with (or sometimes contrasts with) the evidence from the near Continent.

Outline Of Syllabus

Although session titles may vary from year to year the following syllabus is indicative of the kind of topics that will be taught.
Lectures/presentations (2 hrs)/ Seminars/presentations (1 hr)

The basics: What, where and when / Projects, presentations and essays
Material culture: Earlier Neolithic; Later Neolithic/ Mines and quarries
Subsistence and consumption: Earlier Neolithic; Later Neolithic / Neolithic foodways
Dwelling: Earlier Neolithic; Later Neolithic / ‘House societies?’
Monuments and landscapes: Earlier Neolithic; Later Neolithic / Cosmology (architecture and art)
Death: Earlier Neolithic; Later Neolithic / Mortuary practices and kinship
[reading week /consultation]
Identity and mobility: Earlier Neolithic; Later Neolithic; EBA / Debating identity and mobility: aDNA, isotopes, material culture, architecture
Change and continuity: the later second millennium /The Beaker phenomenon
Death and Material Culture: Beakers to Cordoned Urns / Early Bronze Age mortuary practices
Monuments and landscapes: Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age / Cosmology (architecture and art)
Student presentations / Student presentations

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

In successfully completing the module, students will be able to demonstrate:
- a detailed knowledge of the sequence of cultural developments in the fourth, third and early second millennium BC in Britain
- an advanced understanding of how cultural phenomena in Britain related to contemporary phenomena in Ireland and the near Continent (e.g. subsistence; settlement; monuments; mortuary practices; material culture)
- a detailed understanding of the evidence for the key features of life in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in Britain, including subsistence, diet, mobility and settlement, material culture, mortuary practices, monuments, and uses of different parts of the landscape.
- Advanced knowledge of how archaeologists draw inferences about social and cultural relations and past understandings of the world based on the evidence available from this period of prehistory (e.g. identity and shared cultural experience; social organization; social differentiation; violence; cosmology)
- An advanced understanding of how archaeologists identify and explain patterns of change and continuity during this period and region

Intended Skill Outcomes

In successfully completing the module, students will also have developed the following skills to an advanced level:
-The ability to frame a feasible, meaningful research question and conduct relevant research into Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Britain independently and with supervision
- the ability to critically appraise interpretations of archaeological evidence
- the ability to combine different kinds of archaeological evidence in producing a robust and detailed interpretation of prehistoric societies
- the ability to employ both oral and written communication to describe and discuss prehistoric archaeological evidence and critically evaluate its interpretation

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Key knowledge about the archaeological evidence and main interpretive approaches will be provided through lectures. Each lecture topic will also have an associated seminar for which students will each read a text and discuss it with the rest of the class and the seminar leader. The fieldtrip will provide first-hand experience of relevant archaeological sites in their landscape setting.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The students will agree their assignment topics with the module leader by enhancement week, and consult with the module leader about the assignment title before teaching ends. Each student will give a 15 minute presentation on their assignment topic in a student presentation workshop. Formative verbal feedback will be provided on each presentation.

Focussing on a single extended assignment will give students the opportunity to pursue research into whichever aspect of the module interests them most. They are encouraged to visit the lecturing staff during office hours to discuss the development of their topics. This gives them experience of supervision on research assignments within the context of a taught module.

General Notes

N/A