Course Details in 2026/27 Session

Module Title	LH Special Subject A: From Stonehenge to Mycenae: the Bronze Age in Europe
School	History and Cultures
Department	Classics, AH and Archaeology
Module Code	09 37367
Module Lead	Paul Garwood
Level	Honours Level
Credits	20
Semester	Semester 1
Pre-requisites
Co-requisites	LH Special Subject B: From Stonehenge to Mycenae: the Bronze Age in Europe - (09 37368)
Restrictions	None
Contact Hours	Seminar-30 hours Guided independent study-170 hours Total: 200 hours
Exclusions
Description	This module and its co-requisite (Special Subject B: From Stonehenge to Mycenae: the Bronze Age in Europe) will allow students to engage in in-depth research and study on a topic in Classics, Byzantine Studies, Egyptology, Ancient History, or Archaeology. Working in a small group format under the guidance of the module co-ordinator, students will engage with key primary material and with research findings, interpretative approaches, and methodologies associated with the module topic. The module will help students to develop and exercise advanced research skills and to learn through critique and discussion, as well as to acquire knowledge and expertise in their chosen topic. European Bronze Age societies are remarkable at a global scale for their sheer diversity and range of social forms (from hunter-fisher bands to states) concentrated in one small area at the western end of Eurasia. Just as striking is the evidence for cultural transformations of such rapidity that most people who existed during this period would have been aware of far-reaching social, economic and technological changes during their own lives. At the same time, alongside exceptional kinds of local creativity we see unprecedented flows of people, artefacts and ideas that linked societies from temperate Europe to the Aegean, Egypt, the Caucasus and beyond. Bronze Age research, at the cutting edge of prehistoric and ‘protohistoric’ archaeology, is producing profound new insights into these social worlds. This module focuses on technologies and rationalities of metal production, exchange and consumption (including a hands-on bronze artefacts workshop), the first European towns and states, population migrations, royal and aristocratic elites, and new kinds of long-distance trade. Case studies to explore these themes include: Ötzi the Ice Man; Ukrainian and Iberian mega-sites; Beaker migrations and burials; 'amber routes', elite graves in Wessex and Mycenae; the Dover Boat and Ulu Burun shipwreck.
Learning Outcomes	By the end of the module students should be able to: analyse and appraise key findings, interpretative approaches, and methodologies relevant to the material under discussion analyse and evaluate a wide range of relevant primary source material critically evaluate the scholarly context and trends of the subject under exploration summarise and evaluate the subject material with clarity and confidence, in writing and in oral presentation
Assessment
Assessment Methods & Exceptions	Assessment: 1 x 2,000-word essay (50%) and 1 x 10-minute individual presentations (50%) Reassessment: Resubmission of failed component(s)
Other
Reading List