Department of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen

We are over the moon! Our archaeology department at the University of Aberdeen ranked no. 1 in the UK for Archaeology and Forensic Sciences in The Times Good University Guide 2026.

Many thanks to our wonderful students, our staff, and our wider archaeology community here in the bonnie north-east!

Our field season at the historic Old Kinord settlement is a wrap! The #archaeology of standing buildings is like an iceberg! The simple, surface story gives way to complex biographies that hint at changes in use, and how dwellings were maintained, altered and abandoned🪏

Come and meet the PALaEoScot team this Sunday 14th 11am-4pm at our old aberdeen campus

www.explorathon.co.uk/events-progr...

Ever wondered what life was like at the end of the Ice Age? What did people eat? How did they make tools? Come and meet the PALaEoScot team at Explorathon on Sept 14th 11am-4pm at UoA’s King’s College in Old Aberdeen and meet our living prehistorians at their camp! Link below ⬇️

Drs Jeff Oliver and Michael Stratigos are running our historical archaeology field school out at Loch Kinord - revealing secrets of past Scottish farming practices and rural life just under the surface!

Mummy DNA sheds light on Egypt’s diverse past Genome analysis of a 4,500-year-old mummy reveals North African and Iraqi ancestry, as Egypt embarks on an ambitious project to decode the DNA of 200 mummies and 100,000 citizens.

A Nature feature highlights recently published research by a member of our team on an ancient Egyptian genome, placing it in the context of ongoing and future genomics research in Egypt: www.nature.com/articles/d44...

Day Three is excursion day at the SEAA 2025 conference here in Aberdeen and our delegates have been touring north-east Scotland’s beautiful and bountiful archaeology. From stone circles to Pictish forts!

There was a shout for find of the day at 9:21am this morning and it did indeed turn out to be the find of the day - found by our University of Aberdeen Certificate student Andy! What a beauty of a bone pin from the Pictish fort at Burghead! #historicenvironmentscotland @uoa-archaeology.bsky.social

Day two of the SEAA 2025 conference in Aberdeen is off to a flying (and rather metallurgic) start! Now for refuelling in beautiful Elphinstone Hall 😋

Yesterday saw a wonderful first day at the SEAA conference which we have the privellge of hosting this year. Fantastic talks, wonderful food, restorative chats, and a warm welcome at the Town House by the Lord Provost!

A genome from ancient Egypt Most of an ancient Egyptian’s ancestry is best explained using North African genomes — the rest, by genomes from Mesopotamia.

One of our @uoa-archaeology.bsky.social lecturer's recently had an article in Nature, and published a research briefing to go along with. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
These plain language summaries can help expand the impact of your research by making it understandable to a wider audience

Antiquity authors feature on the @archpodnet.bsky.social Heritage Voices podcast to discuss the Nunalleq Digital Museum🏺

It highlights the rich #archaeology of pre-colonial Yup'ik culture whilst maintaining sovereignty for Quinhagak, Alaska's descendant community.

buff.ly/LMoInPr

Nunalleq Digital Museum: multi-vocal narration of a Yup'ik past | Antiquity | Cambridge Core Nunalleq Digital Museum: multi-vocal narration of a Yup'ik past - Volume 99 Issue 405

Charlotta Hillerdal, Alice Watterson, Lonny Alaskuk Strunk, Jaqueline Nalikutaar Cleveland all appear on the podcast!

Check out their #ProjectGallery (co-authored with John Anderson) in Antiquity 🆓 buff.ly/eFzqooU

And explore the museum: buff.ly/omwz2ZY

This week #PALaEoScot has been part of a team testing this wee rock shelter, hopeful for signs of Late Glacial/early Holocene archaeology (or palaeontology!). So far just some cracking lithology (literally) and a very friendly dog - but watch this space! 🦴 🦌 🦣 🪨 @ukri.org @willmills.bsky.social

Aberdeen's Jeff Oliver along with a team from Sheffield, Eryri National Park with local volunteers recently surveyed and excavated the remains of post-medieval cottages & their landscape. This research helps us to understand more about the lives of the rural poor & landless, less visible in history.

We’ll hopefully see you again at some point Prof. Britton! 😅

Broch

Geophys

Mail figure

Geophys

This week the Northern Picts team are in Shetland investigating the context of the fabulous Pictish stone from Mail, Shetland. This carving was found during grave digging in the 1960s and shows a figure carrying a Rhynie Man style axe. We’ll be test pitting at islet broch site and the adjacent coast

The faces of Edinburgh's first residents brought to life 900 years on The faces tell a story of the early days of Edinburgh.

Great coverage of the Edinburgh’s First Burghers exhibition in the Scotsman - it has been brilliant to see this HES-funded work go from the lab to exhibition! @orshicz.bsky.social @boothicus.bsky.social www.scotsman.com/heritage-and...

Great to be at the Europa conference today, a celebration of landscape connectivity in prehistory and the career and work of the wonderful Martin Bell. First up, a fascinating and rapid-fire tour of 900,000 years of island (and not island) Britain with Matt Pope

Congratulations to our newest PhD, Dr Ellie Graham. For her thesis, Ellie tracked erosion and damage to vulnerable coastal sites using drone technology - well done Dr Graham! #climatechange #archaeology #scotland supported by @ukri.org @quadratdtp.bsky.social

Ball

Ball

Not Pictish but the 3D print of one of our University of Aberdeen archaeology third year student’s 3D models came out super well. A carved stone ball from Aberdeenshire

A double rainbow over the plaza on Old Aberdeen Campus, University of Aberdeen. As viewed from the Sir Duncan Rice Library, facing east towards the beach and the North Sea.

The view from my window. Caught between overdue books and overachieving rainbows. 🌈📚 #rainbows

Last day in Aberdeen! Wishing you all the best in your new postdoctoral job Lucy @lucyjkoster.bsky.social @uoa-archaeology.bsky.social

Join us for a day of free fun-filled activities on June 14th in Abbey House Gardens, just next door to the Borders Book Festival! All activities are free and there is no need to book. Visit the link below for full details:

zurl.co/SkBVi

Jeff Oliver and collaborators from the University of Sheffield, Eryri National Park and the local community were up a mountainside in Gwynedd, Wales, surveying the abandoned farmsteads of settlers, encroachers and other landless folk who once called these parts home.

Have a go at geophysical survey with two free workshops in June We are running two free events next month to give beginners a basic understanding of the geophysical survey process and what it can tell us.

We are running two free events in June to give beginners a basic understanding of the geophysical survey process and what it can tell us.
#archaeology #geophysics #orkney #NessofBrodgar #Neolithic

Surveying at the spectacular Cullykhan fort, Pennan, Aberdeenshire. Using our Sensys gradiometer cart for student projects. Cullykhan was dug by Colvin Greig and team in the 1960s and 70s, the fort has been shown to have Late Bronze Age, Iron Age, Pictish, Medieval and 18th century phases of use.

Call for Contributions! The Student & Early Careers Conference 2025 is back 🎓🏺

🗓️ 30 July | 🕒 3 - 8 pm | 📍 Online

Share your work in a friendly space: talks, posters, or videos welcome!
Submit by 2 June, 9 am 👉 conference@archaeologyuk.org

Find out more 👉 www.archaeologyuk.org/youth-engage...