Head of Department Julian Richards and Vice Chancellor Brian Cantor receiving the Queen's Anniversary Prize from the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

Recognized for  Excellence and Innovation in Research
Fishbones

A world leading centre for Bioarchaeology
The excavation at Gawthorpe Hall

One of the most specialized centres for Medieval and Historical Archaeology in Britain
Diving in Saudi

Searching for underwater evidence of the spread of humans along ancient coastal routeways

Fifteenth century interior digitally rendered

Vanguard of work concerned with Archaeological Information Systems

Don's pig heads 2009

Pigs' heads

York has grown into one of the leading research departments in the UK, it was the fastest rising Department in the last Research Assessment Exercise and is ranked 6th in the world based upon the last five years of citation data*. In 2011 the Department  was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize in 2011 in recognition of research and teaching excellence.

*Microsoft Academic Search, Top Organizations in the World, Archaeology Departments. 

Featured research

ZooMS: A bone molecular barcode


Almost all archaeological bones contain collagen.  A team of BioArCh researchers has been working with York's Centre of Excellence in Mass Spectrometry to develop a method to discriminate unidentifiable bone fragments, using a new technology they call ZooMS. 

Grains of truth? Ancient starch granules


An international team of researchers has been exploring the survival  and identification of starch granules as a means of investigating plant diets in the past

Research community

Our Research

Research students are a very important part of our research attaining the highest standards in scholarship. Funding is available on a competitive basis for candidates who are able to demonstrate academic excellence.