Whilst it is not essential to do any background reading before the course begins, you may find it useful to do so. The reading list below contains books that you can read. You don’t have to read all of these and we don’t specify any that you must read. Instead, these are readings you can use to gain a preliminary understanding of topics, as well as to study in more depth those parts of the course you are particularly interested in. You may also want to take a look at magazines such as British Archaeology, World Archaeology and Current Archaeology.
Further suggestions about ways you can extend your understanding of topics through books, television etc may also be posted as appropriate here on the blog.
Aitken, M. 1990. Science-based Dating in Archaeology. Longman. (Introduces several different science-based dating techniques used by archaeologists)
Bahn, P. 2012. Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. (Latest edition of popular, concise introduction to archaeology)
Carver, M. 2009. Archaeological Investigation. Routledge. (General introduction to the process of fieldwork from discovery to publication).
Drewett, P. 2011. Field Archaeology: An Introduction. (2nd edition). Routledge. (Leading text introducing principles of field archaeology)
Gamble, C. 2015. Archaeology: the basics (revised 3nd edition). Routledge. (A good general introduction to a lot of concepts)
Gater, J & Gaffney, C. 2003. Revealing the Buried Past: Geophysics for Archaeologists. The History Press Ltd. (A good introduction to archaeological geophysics by the Time Team ‘geofizz’ guys)
Greene, K. & Moore, T. 2010. Archaeology: An Introduction (5th edn). London: Routledge. (A good general introduction. You may also wish to check out the associated online resources: http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/greene/).
O’Connor, T. 2005. Environmental Archaeology: Principles and Methods (2nd edn.) The History Press. (General introduction to environmental archaeology)
Mays, S. 2010. The Archaeology of Human Bones (2nd edn). Routledge. (General introduction to the archaeological analysis of human remains)
Renfrew, C & Bahn, P (eds). 2004. Archaeology: The Key Concepts. Routledge Key Guides. (Collection of different chapters written by experts in their field)
Renfrew, C. & Bahn, P. 2016. Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice (7th edn). Thames and Hudson. (Aimed at 1st year undergraduates, but still very accessible to read and covers a lot of topics)