oxford university anthropology phd

Doctoral Research

We are open to enquiries from students who wish to study for a DPhil (the Oxford equivalent of a PhD) in the field of Biological Anthropology. You should first identify the research areas you want to work in and a potential supervisor or supervisors. You should then get in touch with them to discuss possible projects and funding options.

Students are advised to choose an area/topic of interest first and then contact the relevant supervisor or supervisors to discuss their project before submitting an application.

How to Apply

All prospective candidates must make their application through the University’s Graduate Studies Office, and are advised to consult the University’s Graduate Studies Prospectus beforehand. All applications are processed initially by the Graduate Studies Office, and must not be made directly to us.

• Graduate admissions

Prospective students will need to select a department of the University in order to enrol for doctoral study.  You may approach a Bioanth faculty to be a supervisor. The following departments may consider  supervision by a Bioanth faculty:

• School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography
• School of Archaeology
• Department of Zoology

If you are interested in working with a researcher you should contact them directly with a brief outline of a possible research topic. Contact details are on linked profile pages.

Funding Opportunities

We do not normaly offer student funding, but the following weblinks may be useful:

• Graduate Scholarships (University, College and External)
• Fees, funding and scholarship search
• Graduate Funding in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography
• Graduate Funding in the Department of Zoology
• Graduate Funding in the School of Archaeology
• The University of Oxford Doctoral Training Centre

Current Students

Why study with us.

The University of Oxford offers a supportive, high quality, interdisciplinary research environment. Our network represent a range of disciplines and research interests, and students are encouraged to take part in a variety of Bioanth-sponsored activities and events. We believe students are very important to the research and learning environment and that they in turn benefit by improving their academic and other professional skills.

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The DPhil in Anthropology is the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography’s advanced research degree, and is awarded to candidates who have completed a substantial original piece of research in the field.

PhD Program Requirements

A master’s degree with an overall grade of 67% or above and normally with a dissertation at 67% or above; and

A first-class or strong upper second-class undergraduate degree with honours in any subject.

At least one such degree should normally be in a branch of anthropology (eg social, cultural, medical, biological, evolutionary) relevant to their proposed research. Distinction-level students in a closely related discipline may be considered for direct entry as Probationer Research Students on the condition that they undertake some coursework in the relevant field of anthropology in their first year. The final degree result should be 67%, or equivalent.

For applicants with a degree from the USA, the minimum acceptable GPA sought is 3.75 out of 4.0.

Part-time applicants will also be expected to show evidence of the ability to commit time to study and, if applicable, an employer’s commitment to make time available to study, to complete coursework, and attend course and University events and modules. Where appropriate, evidence should also be provided of permission to use employers’ data in the proposed research project.

Publications are not expected of applicants.

This degree involves the close analysis of published sources as well as verbal and written critical reflections in the form of oral presentations, essays and exam answers. It is therefore essential to your chance of successfully completing the program that you meet these higher-level English language requirements as stipulated by the University.

PhD Funding Coverage

The University expects to be able to offer over 1,000 full or partial graduate scholarships across the collegiate University in 2024-25.

You will be automatically considered for the majority of Oxford scholarships, if you fulfil the eligibility criteria and submit your graduate application by the relevant December or January deadline.

Most scholarships are awarded on the basis of academic merit and/or potential.

Application Requirement

1. Online Application

2. Official transcript(s): Your transcripts should give detailed information of the individual grades received in your university-level qualifications to date. You should only upload official documents issued by your institution and any transcript not in English should be accompanied by a certified translation.

3. Research proposal: Your research proposal should state the research question, briefly discuss any key literature, discuss methods and provide a basic research timetable. Your research proposal must be written in English. The word count does not include any bibliography.

4. Written work: You should submit two pieces of academically-related written work in English, in any discipline. The two items may be separate extracts from a longer work like a taught-course thesis. The word count does not need to include any bibliography or brief footnotes.

5. GRE General Test scores: No Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or GMAT scores are sought.

6. English language proficiency: This course requires proficiency in English at the University’s higher level. If your first language is not English, you may need to provide evidence that you meet this requirement.

Application Deadline

5 January 2025

Application Fee

An application fee of £75 is payable per course application.

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DPhil in Area Studies

Do you want to learn how to ask and help to answer key questions about some of the most important and exciting regions of the world?

Looking beyond the big picture of globalisation and development, researchers at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA) examine the interplay between the local, the national, the regional, and the global to offer a better understanding of the contemporary world. Exploring a broad range of area-specific issues such as urbanisation in China, gender in Japan, sovereignty in East Asia, ethnicity in South Asia, reconciliation in Africa, democracy in Latin America, security in the Middle East, and presidentialism in Russia and Eastern Europe, the School’s students and scholars closely engage with particular problems such as these to bridge gaps in the universalising theories of the social sciences.

If this sparks your interest then our DPhil in Area Studies might be right for you. The School’s DPhil (the name given to the PhD degree at the University of Oxford) is a full-time three year programme of doctoral study, offering the opportunity to undertake a project dedicated to researching a specific country, a particular region, or to examining more than one country or region in a comparative context, using social science approaches whilst also generating theories and propositions that are of value across regions.

How to Apply

• Selection Criteria
• University Application Guide
• Graduate Study at Oxford
• Frequently Asked Questions

Application Deadlines

Applications must be submitted by noon on  Friday 19th January 2024.

Fees and Funding

• ESRC Masters-to-DPhil Studentships
• Information and Search tool
• Fees and Funding webpage
• Aims and Objectives
• Course Overview
• Research Timelines and Milestones

The DPhil in Area Studies aims to empower you to achieve the following learning outcomes:

• Develop research skills in ways that are relevant to the study of areas and regions
• Build an interdisciplinary and/or comparative understanding of different regions
• Undertake original research which makes a significant contribution to the literature
• Communicate research to non-academic audiences in ways that ensure real-world impact
• Present a lucid and scholarly thesis for examination

Throughout your studies, you will be able to draw on the resources offered by the School’s vibrant research community as well as from across the Social Sciences Division and the Language Centre. You will have access to the University’s outstanding library resources and a connection to an unrivalled network of likeminded students, scholars, and practitioners that engage with the work of the School on a day-to-day basis. Complementing a dedicated Research Seminar series designed specifically to support the School’s DPhil cohort in their studies is a huge range of further lectures, workshops and conferences organised by Area Studies academics that overlap with the department’s areas of expertise.

Our doctoral programme is especially distinctive in that it is designed to meet the needs of students seeking particular interdisciplinary approaches to regions of the world, as well as those who perhaps fall between or across disciplinary boundaries.  It also caters for those whose work cuts across a number of fields including history, cultural studies, anthropology, politics, political economy, international relations, environmental studies and development studies.

Candidates for the DPhil will normally be admitted with Probationer Research Student (PRS) status. As a PRS, you will develop your research proposal and skills, and produce a draft section or sections of your thesis in order to apply for the Transfer of Status that will end your probationary period as a research student and give you full DPhil status. Once you have been admitted to full DPhil status, you are expected to complete your studies by the end of your ninth term as a doctoral student.

You will participate in the 1st Year DPhil Seminar Series and you will have the opportunity to attend other courses offered by the School as identified in your Training Needs Analysis, which will be discussed and agreed with your supervisor and reviewed on a regular basis. As a DPhil student at OSGA, you will be assigned one or two supervisors, depending on your thesis subject. These supervisors will advise and guide you as you progress through the different stages of your research.

During year 1, you will focus on developing your research questions, conceptual framework and methodological approaches for your thesis. You should expect to be submitting material for  Transfer of Status  as the academic year comes to an end.

In your second year you will continue to implement your research plan through theoretical engagement and/or  fieldwork , data collection and analysis. If you intend to undertake fieldwork as part of your research, you will be expected to attend a fieldwork safety course available through the Division.

Your third year requires you to participate in at least one conference, in the UK or internationally, presenting your work to a non-specialist audience, and to submit materials for the  Confirmation of Status  as a doctoral researcher, as well as working towards the completion of your thesis.

The final oral examination – the  viva voce  – represents the culmination of the DPhil programme at which specialist examiners explore your subject knowledge and your thesis arguments through in-depth discussion with you to determine whether to grant the award of Doctor of Philosophy.

Doctoral Research

DPhil in Anthropology

The DPhil in Anthropology trains students in the preparation of independent and original research in Anthropology. You will develop your scholarly communication of the results of such research and prepare for academic employment in anthropology or related fields, or in a professional environment where sensitivity to cross-cultural variability is required.

You will develop a thorough knowledge and understanding of the fundamental concepts, techniques, principles and theories in social and cultural, medical, biological or cognitive and evolutionary anthropology and apply it in designing and implementing an original and independent plan of research. This may be through  fieldwork   with human subjects, though this is not compulsory.  You will have the opportunity to use research methods of anthropology, including qualitative and quantitative aspects (which can include statistical methods and, where appropriate, mathematical modelling) and to present the results of your research in a well written, carefully argued thesis.

As a DPhil student you will undertake your own original research project under the guidance of your supervisor, with whom you will be in regular contact and who you will typically meet at least two to three times a term. Your  supervisor  will help develop and guide your project and  provide feedback. You will work on your own extensively however, and will need a high level of motivation. 

Full-time and part-time study options are available.

Please note this is not offered as a distance learning course.

Dr Elizabeth Ewart  is the Course Director for DPhil in Anthropology

Dr Elizabeth Ewart  is the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS)

For admissions questions please contact the  Graduate Courses Administrator .

Apply here for the DPhil in Anthropology

The application deadline is now early January each year.

DPhil in Migration Studies

The DPhil in Migration Studies is offered jointly by The School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography (SAME) and the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID). As a DPhil student in Migration Studies you will undertake an interdisciplinary in-depth project focused on a specific and important contemporary challenge facing the world by drawing on world class research departments, centres and scholars. Academics from SAME and ODID can offer supervision in a wide range of subjects. Examples include migrant integration, identity formation, transnationalism, urban change, diasporas, humanitarianism, asylum and refugees, citizenship, health and wellbeing.

Please note, this is not offered as a distance learning course.

Click here for details about ESRC Migration Studies Studentships 2023-24

Dr Peter Walsh  is the Course Director for the DPhil in Migration Studies

Dr Elizabeth Ewart  is the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS)

Apply here for the DPhil in Migration Studies

Course details

Anthropology applied.

This is an Online course which requires your attendance to weekly meetings which take place online using Microsoft Teams meetings.

This short course will combine pre-recorded lectures with live, weekly, online meetings where discussion and debate will take place between students and the tutor. Visit our How our WOW courses work page for full details.

This course will close for enrolment 7 days prior to its start date.

As pandemics sweep across the globe, as climate change threatens our vision of the future, and as population growth accelerates amidst diminishing natural resources and rapidly emerging technologies, it seems clear that most of the global challenges and opportunities we face are fundamentally human in nature. While the pervasive influence and consequences of culture, identity and power are woven vividly into the fabric of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, our world is becoming increasingly complex, contested and unpredictable.

In this course we will explore the unique and vital contribution of applied anthropology in helping to examine and address some of the major global challenges of our time. Drawing from real-world case studies we will investigate a range of critical issues, from sustainable development and population displacement to public health and natural disasters. We will learn how an integrated understanding of underlying social and cultural dynamics can dramatically influence the success or failure of interventions and outcomes, tipping a delicate balance between preservation or loss, prosperity or poverty, peace or conflict, life or death.

Programme details

Course starts: 17 Jan 2024

Week 0: Course Orientation

Week 1: Applied anthropology: methods, ethics and collaborating for change

Week 2: Organisational cultures: truth, power and leadership

Week 3: Aid and Agencies: development politics and crisis culture

Week 4: Sustainable development and environmental justice

Week 5: Refugees and dilemmas of displacement

Week 6: Public health and the social dynamics of disease

Week 7: COVID-19: risk and rebellion in a global pandemic

Week 8: Disaster! Cultural responses to catastrophe

Week 9: Hurricane Katrina: truth, tragedy and the Wrath of God

Week 10: International security: peace, conflict and contested worlds

Recommended reading

All weekly class students may become borrowing members of the Rewley House Continuing Education Library for the duration of their course. Prospective students whose courses have not yet started are welcome to use the Library for reference. More information can be found on the Library website.

There is a Guide for Weekly Class students which will give you further information.

Availability of titles on the reading list (below) can be checked on SOLO , the library catalogue.

Preparatory reading

• What Is Anthropology? / Eriksen, T. H. (2017)
• Anthropology and Development: Challenges for the Twenty-First Century / Gardner, K and Lewis, D. (2015)
• Doing Human Service Ethnography / Jacobsson, K and Gubrium, J. F. (2021)

Recommended Reading List

Digital Certification

To complete the course and receive a certificate, you will be required to attend and participate in at least 80% of the live sessions on the course and pass your final assignment. Upon successful completion, you will receive a link to download a University of Oxford digital certificate. Information on how to access this digital certificate will be emailed to you after the end of the course. The certificate will show your name, the course title and the dates of the course you attended. You will be able to download your certificate or share it on social media if you choose to do so.

If you are in receipt of a UK state benefit, you are a full-time student in the UK or a student on a low income, you may be eligible for a reduction of 50% of tuition fees. Please see the below link for full details:

Concessionary fees for short courses

Dr Mark Anderson

Mark specialises in African archaeology, the anthropology of ritual, and applied educational anthropology. He is a Teaching Fellow at Imperial College London, a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Course aims

To explore the role and practice of applied anthropology as an approach to understanding and addressing the social and cultural dynamics that underpin complex global challenges.

Course objectives:

• To deepen our understanding of anthropological principles, perspectives and methods, and how they are being applied to address a wide range of contemporary social issues.
• To nurture anthropologically-informed approaches to exploring human values, behaviours, lived experiences, and perceptions of danger and need.
• To encourage ethical, reflexive, evidence-based and culturally-sensitive engagement with current and future wicked problems and global challenges. 

Teaching methods

Our learning and teaching methods will include engagement with pre-recorded illustrated video lectures and other resources, followed by live online classes. The online classes will feature group activities, discussions and collaborative knowledge construction through our exploration of concepts, examples and case studies.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course students will be better able to:

• define and explain key principles and practices of applied anthropology, and discuss them in relation to real-world issues and challenges;
• critically evaluate a range of examples and case studies of anthropology in practice;
• apply ethnographic methods to explore human values, behaviours, lived experiences and perceptions of danger and need;
• develop a set of ethnographically-informed recommendations for addressing a contemporary issue or challenge, and justify your rationale.

Assessment methods

Formal assessment will follow Option A, and will involve two summative written assignments – one of 500 words (or equivalent if presentation format is chosen) and one of 1000 written words. These will be preceded by a formative written assignment of 500 words. Each assignment will give learners an opportunity to demonstrate one or a combination of the specified learning outcomes, and will generate detailed feedback. Informal assessment and feedback will also occur through group discussions and learning activities during the online classes.

Students must submit a completed Declaration of Authorship form at the end of term when submitting your final piece of work. CATS points cannot be awarded without the aforementioned form - Declaration of Authorship form

Application

We will close for enrolments 7 days prior to the start date to allow us to complete the course set up. We will email you at that time (7 days before the course begins) with further information and joining instructions. As always, students will want to check spam and junk folders during this period to ensure that these emails are received.

To earn credit (CATS points) for your course you will need to register and pay an additional £10 fee per course. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online.

Please use the 'Book' or 'Apply' button on this page. Alternatively, please complete an  enrolment form (Word)  or  enrolment form (Pdf) .

Level and demands

This course is designed to offer an introduction to the topic of applied anthropology and no prior knowledge or experience is necessary. Those who do have some prior knowledge of social or cultural anthropology (or related subjects) may find this useful.

Students who register for CATS points will receive a Record of CATS points on successful completion of their course assessment.

To earn credit (CATS points) you will need to register and pay an additional £10 fee per course. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online.

Coursework is an integral part of all weekly classes and everyone enrolled will be expected to do coursework in order to benefit fully from the course. Only those who have registered for credit will be awarded CATS points for completing work at the required standard.

Students who do not register for CATS points during the enrolment process can either register for CATS points prior to the start of their course or retrospectively from the January 1st after the current full academic year has been completed. If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee.

Most of the Department's weekly classes have 10 or 20 CATS points assigned to them. 10 CATS points at FHEQ Level 4 usually consist of ten 2-hour sessions. 20 CATS points at FHEQ Level 4 usually consist of twenty 2-hour sessions. It is expected that, for every 2 hours of tuition you are given, you will engage in eight hours of private study.

Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme (CATS)

Terms & conditions for applicants and students

Information on financial support

Report a problem

Thank you, your report has been submitted. We will deal with the issue as soon as possible. If you have any other questions, please send an email to [email protected] .

Your Programmes

University of Oxford

DPhil (PhD) Anthropology

1 in 2 applicants to this programme received an offer.

Data shown above is for entry in academic year 2019/20 (sources) .

Previous Years

Data sources.

• FOI Request by S.H Crozier. July 2016.
• FOI Request by Albert Warren. December 2019.

The acceptance rate , or offer rate, represents the fraction of applicants who received an offer. Note that this will be generally lower the acceptances rates (acceptances divided by applicants) published by many other sources. This article explains it in more detail. The acceptances generally indicate the number of offer holders who accepted the offer and fulfilled its conditions. For some universities, however, it denotes the number of applicants who accepted the offer, regardless of whether they subsequently met its conditions.

Data Reliability

Unless otherwise noted, the data presented comes from the universities and is generally reliable. However, some of the differences between years and/or courses may be due to different counting methodologies or data gathering errors. This may especially be the case if there is a sharp difference from year to year. If the data does not look right, click the "Report" button located near the top of the page.

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Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Why decolonization and inclusion matter in linguistics?

Decolonizing Linguistics

Decolonizing Linguistics is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. It is free to read at Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

• By Anne H. Charity Hudley , Christine Mallinson , and Mary Buchlotz
• March 27 th 2024

As sociolinguists, we have centered social justice in our research, teaching, and administrative work for many years. But as with many other academics, this issue took on renewed collective urgency for us in the context of the events of 2020, from toxic politics and policies at the federal level, to state-sanctioned anti-Black violence and the ensuing racial reckoning, to the Covid-19 pandemic and the many inequities it exposed and heightened.

Troubled by the often-misinformed efforts to make institutional change that we saw around us, we wanted to take action that was both specific to our disciplinary context and wide-reaching in its effects. We started with an article in the flagship linguistics journal, Language , calling for the centering of racial justice within the discipline. That article was the lead piece in the journal’s Perspectives section and was accompanied by a range of responses from linguists worldwide, which we responded to in turn.

We wrote with the hope that institutional change could start from the individual and (especially) collective actions of linguists. We were also motivated by the hope that the discipline our students will enter will be radically different from the one that we have spent our careers within. This hope fueled our work for the next several years, as we collaborated with linguists within and beyond linguistics departments and throughout the academy to create concrete, specific, and action-centered models for how to do the work necessary to transform the discipline. The results of this intensive collaborative process are two companion volumes, Decolonizing Linguistics and Inclusion in Linguistics , and their websites, which provide additional information and resources. 

Some linguists, particularly those for whom linguistics is structured and whom it best serves, may be asking themselves, “What’s so bad about linguistics in its current form?” Many linguists we interacted with as we embarked on this project were defensive, baffled, or even outright hostile. Fortunately, many others were curious and eager to learn how the discipline could do better and what they could do to help. Most importantly, the people for whom we do this work—those who have been made to feel unwelcome in linguistics and who have been shut out, pushed out, or relegated to the disciplinary margins, as well as those who have succeeded despite rather than because of linguistics-as-usual—understood and welcomed our project. Many of these current, former, and would-be linguists have been engaged in like-minded efforts of their own.

Some critics see our work as “politicizing” linguistics. But these commenters miss the point that linguistics (and academia) has always been political. The discipline has its roots in empire and the colonizing practices of categorizing and classifying languages in order to control those who use them. As the discipline has taken shape over the centuries to the present day, linguistics has become a field limited by its own exclusionary practices and ideologies—a field that, in our view, is simply too small. In Decolonizing Linguistics and Inclusion in Linguistics , we envision and work to build a linguistics that is capacious and welcoming, particularly to those whose lived experiences give them fresh and much-needed insights into the kinds of questions linguistics should be asking, the kinds of methods it should be using, and the kinds of real-world impacts it should be making.

Inclusion in linguistics

Most linguists are familiar with the concept of inclusion through institutional discourse in academia and elsewhere, particularly the acronym DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) or its many variants. Too often, however, inclusion is used to mean recruiting members of formerly excluded groups into often hostile institutions, without making significant changes to the workings of the institutions themselves. True inclusion is not a matter of making space within existing institutions for new people to do the same old thing. Instead, true inclusion requires the transformation not only of who is in institutional spaces but what they do, how, and why. Transformation demands that we ask ourselves who is and isn’t present in linguistics, whether they have full and equitable access, and whether the community of linguists will value their full humanity, rather than treating them merely as sources of linguistic data or as token representatives and spokespersons for the groups to which they belong.

Inclusion in Linguistics offers abundant examples of how linguists can and already are creating genuine inclusion within the discipline. The authors challenge limited notions of who gets to be included, calling attention to a wide range of groups who remain marginalized on the basis of race and ethnicity, gender identity, disability, geography, language, class and caste, and more. The authors issue a powerful call for a linguistics that does not simply make space for but purposefully centers those who have been excluded. We collectively urge linguists to think bigger, to abandon long-cherished ideological investments in what is and isn’t legitimate within linguistics, and to build a discipline that doesn’t hide in the ivory tower but engages with the world and makes it a better place.

Decolonizing linguistics

Compared to inclusion, decolonization may be a less familiar concept to many linguists. Some academics in the US may have first encountered the idea, along with related concepts like settler colonialism, through student activism on their campus in recent years and months. (In fact, the New York Times recently published an explainer on the term settler colonialism , assuming—no doubt correctly—that its predominantly white, liberal, and highly educated readership is not well versed in decolonial theory and activism.)

We chose the title Decolonizing Linguistics to invoke the long and ongoing history of linguists’ global academic exploitation of Black and Indigenous people and the discipline-based extraction of their languages for professional and economic gain. Contributors identify some of the forms of colonialism that linguistics has taken and continues to take. We emphasize the importance of Black-centered and Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies in undoing colonizing structures. We also highlight community-driven collaborative projects that provide a comprehensive picture of the powerful social and scholarly impacts of an unsettled, decolonized linguistics.

Both volumes offer specific roadmaps and pathways for how to advance social justice, through programs, partnerships, curricula, and other initiatives. Our work is a necessary first step toward institutional and disciplinary change: a linguistics built by, around, and for groups that have confronted colonization, oppression, and exclusion—that is, precisely the people whose languages so often fascinate linguists—is also a linguistics that prioritizes the new ideas and practices that these groups bring to the discipline and recognizes these new directions as precisely where linguistics needs to go.

We do not consider Inclusion in Linguistics and Decolonizing Linguistics as definitive statements but rather as an invitation for others to join us in ongoing conversations. We invite linguistics scholars and students, educators and higher education leaders, around the world to engage with the ideas in both volumes with an eye toward what you can do in your own local context, what we have inevitably left out, and how you might build on, adapt, and push us forward to create the kind of inclusive, decolonized, and socially just linguistics that you would like to be part of.

Featured image by Fons Heijnsbroek, abstract-art via Unsplash .

Anne H. Charity Hudley is Associate Dean of Educational Affairs, Stanford Graduate School of Education, the Bonnie Katz Tenenbaum Professor of Education and Professor of African and African American Studies & Linguistics, by courtesy. She is also director of the Stanford Black Academic Development Lab.

Christine Mallinson is the 2023-24 Lipitz Distinguished Professor of the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Professor in the Language, Literacy, and Culture Program, and Affiliate Professor in the Department of Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies, where she is also Director of the Center for Social Science Scholarship and Special Assistant for Research & Creative Achievement in the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Mary Bucholtz is Professor in Department of Linguistics and Director of the Center for California Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is also affiliated with the Departments of Anthropology, Education, Feminist Studies, and Spanish and Portuguese as well as the Programs in Latin American and Iberian Studies and in Comparative Literature.

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Archaeology and Anthropology

• Admissions Requirements
• Fees and Funding
• Studying at Oxford

Course overview

UCAS code: LV64 Entrance requirements: AAA Course duration: 3 years (BA)

Subject requirements

Required subjects: Not applicable Recommended subjects: Not applicable Helpful subjects: Combination of arts and science subjects

Other course requirements

Admissions tests: None Written Work: Two pieces

Admissions statistics*

Interviewed: 58% Successful: 16% Intake: 20 *3-year average 2021-23

Tel: +44 (0) 1865 278121 Email:  [email protected]

Unistats information for this course can be found at the bottom of the page

Please note that there may be no data available if the number of course participants is very small.

About the course

Archaeology and anthropology together encompass the study of humankind from the origins of the human species to the present day.

Both disciplines have a long history: archaeology grew from 18th-century antiquarianism, while anthropology began even earlier in the first days of colonial encounter.

Today, both subjects involve a range of sophisticated approaches shared with the arts, social sciences and physical sciences.

Oxford’s distinctive combination of archaeology and anthropology, studied over three years, offers an unusually broad perspective on human societies from early prehistory to the present.

The course offers a comprehensive guide to the richness and diversity of human cultural experience throughout space and time.

By choosing to study here you will be able to:

• explore how humans evolved
• get to grips with major transformational processes in human history such as the development of farming, the emergence of towns and trading systems and the spread of world religions
• learn why societies structure their families, economies and political systems in the ways that they do
• investigate how material culture represents and reproduces beliefs and ideologies.

Five Oxford institutions specialise in these subjects:

• The School of Archaeology 
• The  School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography
• The Ashmolean Museum
• The  Pitt Rivers Museum  
• The Oxford University Museum of Natural History .

All five institutions play a key role in the provision of teaching for the degree.

Fieldwork/work placements/international opportunities

As part of your course you must undertake a minimum of four weeks of fieldwork (subject to approval by your tutors). This is normally completed in the summer vacation at the end of your first year. 

Fieldwork can take place in field settings, or in a laboratory or museum and involve anthropological as well as archaeological projects. Recent destinations include Azerbaijan, Denmark and South Africa.

Financial support for your fieldwork is available from the University and may also be available from your college. You may also choose to engage in further fieldwork as part of your final-year dissertation, while other opportunities may exist for work-based learning in the University’s own museums.

Unistats information

Discover Uni  course data provides applicants with Unistats statistics about undergraduate life at Oxford for a particular undergraduate course.

Visit the Studying at Oxford section of this page for a more general insight into what studying here is likely to be like.

Please select 'see course data' to view the full Unistats data for Archaeology and Anthropology. 

Please note that there may be no data available if the number of course participants is very small. 

A typical week

Your timetable will be divided into lectures, tutorials and practical classes. These will cover topics such as dating, isotope analysis, and the analysis of plant, animal and human remains, as well as artefacts.

In the first year you will spend around six hours a week in lectures, which focus on the course’s core papers. In Years 2 and 3, lectures for core and optional papers take up around ten hours a week. Throughout the course, there are one or two tutorials a week, (typically a total of twelve in each term).

Tutorials are usually two students and a tutor, but may include up to three students depending on circumstances.

Lectures will include the whole year group of around 25 students, although they are sometimes shared with Human Sciences students and/or postgraduates, and are therefore larger. Lecture sizes for optional courses are normally smaller and could be as low as 3-6 students.

Most tutorials, classes, and lectures are delivered by staff who are tutors in their subject. Many are world-leading experts with years of experience in teaching and research. Some teaching may also be delivered by postgraduate students who are studying at doctoral level.

To find out more about how our teaching year is structured, visit our  Academic Year  page. 

Course structure

Years 2 and 3.

The content and format of this course may change in some circumstances. Read further information about potential course changes .

Academic requirements

Wherever possible, your grades are considered in the context in which they have been achieved.

Read further information on  how we use contextual data .

If a practical component forms part of any of your science A‐levels used to meet your offer, we expect you to pass it.

If English is not your first language you may also need to meet our English language requirements .

All candidates must follow the application procedure as shown on our  Applying to Oxford  pages.

The following information gives specific details for students applying for this course.

Admissions test

You do not need to take a written test as part of an application for this course.

Written work

Visit our page on the  submission of written work  for further guidance and to download a cover sheet.

What are tutors looking for?

Tutors are primarily looking for an interest in, and enthusiasm for, the study of humans and their material culture, combined with an ability to digest and assimilate significant quantities of data and to construct evidence-based arguments.

While you don’t need to have prior experience of studying archaeology or anthropology, fieldwork experience and evidence of supplementary reading would be seen as one possible demonstration of your interest and commitment.

Tutors will be looking for the following qualities at interview:

• an ability to think independently
• potential and motivation for studying archaeology and anthropology
• enthusiasm and interest in the combined disciplines
• commitment to the requirements of the course.

Visit the Archaeology website for more detail on the selection criteria for this course .

Archaeology and Anthropology opens up a wide range of career opportunities. This is in part because the degree offers a unique perspective on how human societies operate and develop and on how people interact with each other.

This range of career opportunities is also due to the intellectually demanding requirements of an Oxford degree, and to the combination of independent study and tutorial teaching.

Graduates of this course have found opportunities in heritage management, international development, education, the law, the media and the Civil Service among other careers.

Note: These annual fees are for full-time students who begin this undergraduate course here in 2024. Course fee information for courses starting in 2025 will be updated in September.

We don't want anyone who has the academic ability to get a place to study here to be held back by their financial circumstances. To meet that aim, Oxford offers one of the most generous financial support packages available for UK students and this may be supplemented by support from your college.

Further details about fee status eligibility can be found on the fee status webpage.

For more information please refer to our  course fees page . Fees will usually increase annually. For details, please see our  guidance on likely increases to fees and charges.

Living costs

Living costs at Oxford might be less than you’d expect, as our  world-class resources and college provision can help keep costs down.

Living costs for the academic year starting in 2024 are estimated to be between £1,345 and £1,955 for each month you are in Oxford. Our academic year is made up of three eight-week terms, so you would not usually need to be in Oxford for much more than six months of the year but may wish to budget over a nine-month period to ensure you also have sufficient funds during the holidays to meet essential costs. For further details please visit our  living costs webpage .

• Financial support

**If you have studied at undergraduate level before and completed your course, you will be classed as an Equivalent or Lower Qualification student (ELQ) and won’t be eligible to receive government or Oxford funding

Fees, Funding and Scholarship search

Additional Fees and Charges Information for Archaeology and Anthropology

Students must complete at least four weeks of approved fieldwork by the end of the second year. The cost of this will depend on the location. Funding is available from the University and potentially from your college to help towards costs.

Contextual information

Unistats course data from Discover Uni provides applicants with statistics about a particular undergraduate course at Oxford. For a more holistic insight into what studying your chosen course here is likely to be like, we would encourage you to view the information below as well as to explore our website more widely.

The Oxford tutorial

College tutorials are central to teaching at Oxford. Typically, they take place in your college and are led by your academic tutor(s) who teach as well as do their own research. Students will also receive teaching in a variety of other ways, depending on the course. This will include lectures and classes, and may include laboratory work and fieldwork. However, tutorials offer a level of personalised attention from academic experts unavailable at most universities.

During tutorials (normally lasting an hour), college subject tutors will give you and one or two tutorial partners feedback on prepared work and cover a topic in depth. The other student(s) in your tutorials will be doing the same course as you. Such regular and rigorous academic discussion develops and facilitates learning in a way that isn’t possible through lectures alone. Tutorials also allow for close progress monitoring so tutors can quickly provide additional support if necessary.

Read more about tutorials and an Oxford education

College life

Our colleges are at the heart of Oxford’s reputation as one of the best universities in the world.

• At Oxford, everyone is a member of a college as well as their subject department(s) and the University. Students therefore have both the benefits of belonging to a large, renowned institution and to a small and friendly academic community. Each college or hall is made up of academic and support staff, and students. Colleges provide a safe, supportive environment leaving you free to focus on your studies, enjoy time with friends and make the most of the huge variety of opportunities.
• Porters’ lodge (a staffed entrance and reception)
• Dining hall
• Lending library (often open 24/7 in term time)
• Student accommodation
• Tutors’ teaching rooms
• Chapel and/or music rooms
• Green spaces
• Common room (known as the JCR).
• All first-year students are offered college accommodation either on the main site of their college or in a nearby college annexe. This means that your neighbours will also be ‘freshers’ and new to life at Oxford. This accommodation is guaranteed, so you don’t need to worry about finding somewhere to live after accepting a place here, all of this is organised for you before you arrive.
• All colleges offer at least one further year of accommodation and some offer it for the entire duration of your degree. You may choose to take up the option to live in your college for the whole of your time at Oxford, or you might decide to arrange your own accommodation after your first year – perhaps because you want to live with friends from other colleges.
• While college academic tutors primarily support your academic development, you can also ask their advice on other things. Lots of other college staff including welfare officers help students settle in and are available to offer guidance on practical or health matters. Current students also actively support students in earlier years, sometimes as part of a college ‘family’ or as peer supporters trained by the University’s Counselling Service.

Read more about Oxford colleges and how you choose

FIND OUT MORE

• Visit the School of Archaeology's website
• Visit the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography website  

Our 2024 undergraduate open days will be held on 26 and 27 June and 20 September.

Register to find out more about our upcoming open days.

RELATED PAGES

• Which Oxford colleges offer my course?
• Your academic year

RELATED COURSES

• Classical Archaeology and Ancient History
• Earth Sciences (Geology)
• History of Art
• Human Sciences

FEEL INSPIRED?

You might like to have a look at the  Archaeology and Anthropology reading list  or the Discover Anthropology  website.

You can also listen to and watch videos from the School of Archaeology , including a range of talks and content available via YouTube . 

Follow us on social media

Follow us on social media to get the most up-to-date application information throughout the year, and to hear from our students.

MSc and MPhil Courses

Applying for a master's at the school of anthropology and museum ethnography.

Elizabeth Ewart , Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies takes us through eligibility and practical guidance on how to apply.

Applying for a Master's at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford

Other resources

Full admissions information on details on all oxford university graduate courses.

Select Anthropology and Museum Ethnography from the drop down for details of our courses

For more information about study here at the School

Fees and Funding

 Information on funding opportunities available at Oxford and help to calculate your living costs