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Archaeology students dressed up for Halloween and also joined President Ryan for a 5K!

Interdisciplinary Archaeology Program

The Interdisciplinary Archaeology Program combines the faculty and resources of several departments. Our undergraduate majors undertake a program of study that combines prehistoric, historic, and classical archaeology, while graduate students pursue more focused research through the departments of Anthropology or Art History. The discipline of Archaeology is concerned with the recovery, analysis, and interpretation of the material remains of past cultures and societies. The topics of study at UVa can vary widely, ranging from issues of human origins and cultural evolution to the study of Classical Greece and Rome; from the structure of ancestral Pueblo societies to colonialism in Virginia; and from the study of the ancient Near East to the development of Swahili culture on the East African coast.

The Archaeology faculty is composed of a group of core faculty, all archaeologists from the Anthropology and Art History departments. In addition, faculty from Architectural History, History, Religious Studies, Classics, and Environmental Sciences offer many courses of direct relevance. Faculty sponsored field research is currently being conducted in Italy, Greece,Turkey, East Africa, the Southwestern United States, Virginia and the Caribbean.

2018 ARCHAEOLOGY PHDs RECEIVE HONORABLE MENTION IN RICHARD GUY WILSON PRIZE COMPETITION AWARDED BY THE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
THE WILSON PRIZE HONORS WRITING OR DESIGN THAT REFLECTS ON THE VALUE OF PLACE AND THE SHAPING OF ENVIRONMENT

The Interdisciplinary Program in Archaeology is pleased to congratulate two recent PHD graduates, Lee Bloch (Department of Anthropology) and Clare Weiss (McIntire Department of Art) on their receiving honorable mentions in the School of Architecture’s annual competition for the Richard Guy Wilson Prize in the Graduate Thesis/Dissertation Category.  In announcing the award, Professor Shiqiao Li, Chair of Architectural History, noted that the number (51) of high quality submissions led the panel of judges to award two honorable mentions this year.
 
The Richard Guy Wilson Prize competition encourages students to “examine and reflect upon the value of place and the diverse ways through which we all contribute to the shaping of the environment.”  The judge’s comments on Lee and Claire’s submitted work are reprinted below:
Lee Bloch, “Sweetgum’s Amber: Animate Mound Landscapes and the Nonlinear Longue Durée in the Native South” (Department of Anthropology). This dissertation about the Native American mounds in Georgia is meticulously researched (30 different sites) and beautifully written, integrating ethnography and theory. It is located at an intersection of disciplinary debate: the status of colonial and post-colonial paradigms at a time when an environmental paradigm of the anthropocene is ascendant.
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Claire Weiss, “The Construction of Sidewalks as Indicator of Social and Economic Interaction in Ancient Roman Cities” (McIntire Department of Art). This dissertation is very well-documented, broad in scope, and clearly written; the arguments on “social sidewalks” offer great potential to connect this research into imperial Italy to contemporary studies of vernacular landscapes in urban settings, which foreground class/race implications of infrastructure design.
For more information see https://www.arch.virginia.edu/news/richard-guy-wilson-prize-winner-2018
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Check out our new Fieldwork Resources Page >

Congratulations to this year's Archaeology Program Award Winners and Interns!

Archaeology Brown Bag Workshop |

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Archaeology Brown-Bag Workshops provide an informal, interdisciplinary venue for presentations of work in progress by students, faculty, and visiting scholars, and for discussion of developments in the recent archaeological literature. Workshops convene in the conference room on the second floor of Brooks Hall, unless otherwise noted. 

Want to volunteer a talk or discussion topic? Contact Adria LaViolette or Fraser Neiman.
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The Pre-Modern World at the University of Virginia
​​Started in 2014, the Pre-Modern Group at UVA is a gathering of faculty and students who come together to explore salient issues of antiquity and the Middle Ages (variously construed) within a global context. We seek to advance understanding of the world before the advent of the modern era through cross-cultural conversation about society, modes of expression, philosophical systems, and belief.

Faculty Publications

Support Archaeology

3-D Scanning of U-Hall

With demolition looming, University Hall gets scanned and photographed into history.

Tag Team: UVA Art Professor and Wrestling Coach Tackle Ancient Mystery

University of Virginia classical archaeologist John Dobbins, UVA head wrestling coach Steve Garland and assistant coach Trent Paulson exchanged a few pleasantries, then took off their shoes and stepped onto a wrestling mat.
Their objective: to try and solve a mystery surrounding an ancient Greek vase residing in the Louvre museum in Paris.

Reflections: Native Art across Generations

Reflections: Native Art Across Generations brings together historic Native American art drawn from the collections of The Fralin Museum of Art with the work of several distinguished contemporary Native artists. This exhibition establishes connections between past and present creative traditions and forms, exploring the idea of legacy and the meanings and inspirations that works of art carry through the generations.

Monticello-UVA Archaeological Field School

Fraser Neiman leads a hardy band of undergraduate and graduate students on a quest to learn more about life hundreds of years ago on Thomas Jefferson’s plantation as part of a program managed jointly by Monticello and the University of Virginia.

Affiliated Departments

Department of Anthropology
100 Brooks Hall
P.O. Box 400120
Charlottesville, VA 22904
(434) 924-7044
Fax: (434) 924-1350

McIntire Department of Art
University of Virginia
P.O. Box 400130
Charlottesville, VA 22904 
(434) 924-6123
Fax: (434) 924-3647

Contact Us

Adria LaViolette 
Interim Program Director
309 Brooks Hall
(434)-982-2631
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