Program Overview

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Programs and Policies 2025–2026

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Yale University offers a wide range of programs and policies for the academic year 2025-2026.

Archaeological Studies

The Archaeological Studies program is administered by Yale’s Council on Archaeological Studies, with faculty from the Departments of Anthropology, Classics, Earth and Planetary Sciences, History, History of Art, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Religious Studies.

Program Description

The aim of the program is to give students the academic background needed for careers in museums, cultural resource management, and teaching in community colleges and secondary schools. It also provides the opportunity for teachers, curators, and administrators to refresh themselves on recent developments in archaeology. In addition, the program enables some of our students to strengthen their background in archaeology before applying to Ph.D. programs.

Faculty

• Chair and Director of Graduate Studies: Richard Burger
• Professors:
  • Richard Burger
  • Edward Cooke, Jr.
  • John Darnell
  • Stephen Davis
  • Eckart Frahm
  • Milette Gaifman
  • William Honeychurch
  • J.G. Manning
  • Roderick McIntosh
  • Nadine Moeller
  • Eric Sargis
  • Anne Underhill
  • David Watts
  • Harvey Weiss
• Associate Professors:
  • Oswaldo Chinchilla
  • Andrew Johnston
• Assistant Professors:
  • Allison Caplan
  • Alexander Ekserdjian
  • Piphal Heng
  • Jessica Thompson
• Lecturers, Research Associates, and Research Scientists:
  • Ellery Frahm
  • Gregory Marouard
  • Catherine Skinner

Special Requirements for the M.A. Degree

• Courses are drawn from the graduate programs of the participating departments and from those undergraduate courses that are also open to graduate students.
• Eight courses are required.
• Unless previously taken for credit, these will include:
  • The archaeological laboratory overview
  • At least one additional laboratory course
  • A course related to archaeology in two of the following three groups:
    1. Anthropology
    2. Classics, history, history of art, Near Eastern languages and civilizations, or religious studies
    3. Earth and planetary sciences, ecology and evolutionary biology, or environment
  • Four electives.
• All students are required to participate in an approved summer field project.
• In addition, each student will write a master’s thesis.
• Degree candidates are required to pay a minimum of one year of full tuition.
• Full-time students can complete the course requirements in one academic year, and all students are expected to complete the program within a maximum period of three academic years.

Courses

• ARCG 5328b / ANTH 5328b / NELC 7290b, Magic and Ritual in Ancient Egypt and the Near East: Introduction to ancient Egyptian and Near East magic and rituals with an overview on the use of magic and discussion of the different rituals and festivals.
• ARCG 6136b / ANTH 6136b, Geoarchaeology: Earth and Environmental Sciences in Archaeological Investigations: A survey of the numerous ways in which theories, approaches, techniques, and data from the earth and environmental sciences are used to address archaeological research questions.
• ARCG 6242b / NELC 7440b, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Techniques: Their Histories and Socioeconomic Implications: This seminar investigates in detail ancient Egyptian materials, techniques, and industries through the scope of archaeology, history, and socioeconomical, textual, and iconographic data.
• ARCG 6345a / ARCG 645 / NELC 7430a, Archaeology of Ancient Egypt - The Age of the Pyramids: This lecture course introduces the archaeology of ancient Egypt, beginning with an overview of the environment, climate, and history of the discipline, as well as the new archaeological methods used in contemporary fieldwork in Egypt.
• ARCG 6375a / ANTH 6375a, The Green Hell and the Mother Serpent: Amazonian Archaeology, Ethnography, and Politics: Survey and seminar discussing the archaeology and ethnography of greater Amazonia, along with the political stakes of this heritage for modern Indigenous communities in the region.
• ARCG 6665b / ANTH 6665b, Evolution of Human Diet: This course examines human nutrition and subsistence behavior from an evolutionary perspective.
• ARCG 7075b / ANTH 7075b, Anthropology of Mobile Societies: The social and cultural significance of the ways that hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads, maritime traders, and members of our own society traverse space.
• ARCG 7116La / ANTH 7116La, Introduction to Archaeological Laboratory Sciences: Introduction to techniques of archaeological laboratory analysis, with quantitative data styles and statistics appropriate to each.
• ARCG 7150a / ANTH 7150a, Analysis of Lithic Technology: This course provides an introduction to the analysis of the chipped and ground stone tools found on archaeological sites.
• ARCG 7185b / ANTH 7185b, Archaeological Ceramics I: Ceramics are a rich source of information about a range of topics including ancient technology, cooking practices, craft specialization, regional trade, and religious beliefs.
• ARCG 7259b / ANTH 7259b, Social Complexity in Ancient China: This seminar explores the variety of archaeological methods and theoretical approaches that have been employed to investigate the development and nature of social complexity in ancient China.
• ARCG 7272b / ANTH 7272b, Cities in Antiquity: The Archaeology of Urbanism: Archaeological studies of ancient cities and urbanism.
• ARCG 7280a / ANTH 7280a, Archaeology of Religion: The course explores archaeological approaches to the study of religion.
• ARCG 7297a / ANTH 7297a, Archaeology of East Asia: East and Southeast Asia have increasingly emerged as hotspots for global political, economic, and cultural interactions.
• ARCG 8513a or b / ANTH 8513a or b, Human Osteology: A lecture and laboratory course focusing on the characteristics of the human skeleton and its use in studies of functional morphology, paleodemography, and paleopathology.
• ARCG 9053a or b, Directed Research in Archaeology and Prehistory: By arrangement with faculty.
• ARCG 9900a or b, Dir Reading: Direct Reading course for ARCG.
• ARCG 9901a or b, Master's Thesis: Master's thesis course.
• ARCG 9950a or b, Master's Essay: Master's Essay for ARCG.