Archaeology reading lists

Summer reading lists for some of our archaeology courses.

We look forward to welcoming you to Edinburgh in September to begin your postgraduate journey. We will be in touch over the summer with details of course choices and information about Welcome Week.

If you have any questions about the programme you have signed up to attend, please do not hesitate to get in touch with

MSc in Archaeology and MSc in Mediterranean Archaeology - Dr Beatrijs de Groot
MSc in Human Osteoarchaeology - Dr Linda Fibiger and Dr Sophie Newman

There is no need to purchase many of the books listed below. They are suggestions and not exhaustive. Many libraries and retailers will likely have copies of these books. Some of them are available as ebooks from the University Library, via the online catalogue: http://discovered.ed.ac.uk

MSc in Archaeology, and MSc in Mediterranean Archaeology

Carver, M. 2009. Archaeological Investigation. Routledge.
Harris, Oliver JT, and Craig N. Cipolla. Archaeological theory in the new millennium: introducing current perspectives. Routledge, 2017.
Johnson, M. 2010. Archaeological Theory: an Introduction. Blackwell, Oxford (2nd ed). [Useful if you find theory a little harder than practice].
King, Rachel, and Trinidad Rico. Methods and methodologies in heritage studies. UCL Press, 2024.
Kintigh, Keith W., et al. Grand challenges for archaeology. American antiquity 79.1 (2014): 5-24.
Knappett, Carl. Thinking through material culture: An interdisciplinary perspective. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
Renfrew, C. & Bahn, P. 2020. Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice. Thames and Hudson, London. (= 8th edition, or 6-7th edition will do).
Trigger, B. 2006. A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. (1st 1989 edition is also good).

MSc in Human Osteoarchaeology

Cheverko, C. M., Prince-Buitenhuys, J. R. & Hubbe, M. (eds.) 2021. Theoretical Approaches in Bioarchaeology. Routledge, London
Duday, H. 2009. The archaeology of the dead: lectures in archaeothanatology. Oxbow Books, Oxford.
Fibiger, L., Ahlström, T., Meyer, C. & Smith, M. 2023. Conflict, violence, and warfare among early farmers in north western Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120 (4), e2209481119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.220948111
Geber, J. 2015. Victims of Ireland’s Great Famine: The Bioarchaeology of Mass Burials at Kilkenny Union Workhouse. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Jenkins, T. 2011. Contesting human remains in museum collections: the crisis of cultural authority. Routledge, New York.
Jurmain, R. 1999. Stories from the skeleton: Behavioral reconstruction in human Osteology. Gordon and Breach Publishers, Amsterdam.
Larsen, C. S. (2015). Bioarchaeology: Interpreting behavior from the human skeleton (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Mays, S. 2021. The archaeology of human bones (3^rd edition) Routledge, Abingdon.
Newman, S.L., Gowland, R.L., Caffell, A.C. (2019) North and South: a comprehensive analysis of non-adult growth and health in the Industrial Revolution (AD 18th-19th C), England. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 169(1)
Roberts, C. A. (2018). Human remains in archaeology: A handbook. York: Council for British Archaeology.
Roberts, C. & Manchester, K. 2010. The Archaeology of Disease, Third Edition. Alan Sutton Publishing, Stroud.
Schulting, R. & Fibiger, L. (eds.) 2012. Sticks, stones and broken bones. Neolithic violence in a European perspective. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
White, T.D., Black, M., Folkens, P.A. 2011. The Human Bone Manual. Academic Press, London.
Wood, J., Milner, G.R., Harpending, H.C. & Weiss, K.M. 1992. The Osteological Paradox. Problems of Inferring Prehistoric Health from Skeletal Samples. Current Anthropology 33 (4): 343-370.

This article was published on 2024-08-01