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Classical Archaeology in Classics vs. Anthropology Department


Clopez174

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Hey everyone... I'm a bit stumped.

The program title "Classical archaeology" remains loyal to classical studies, yet one can study classical archaeology through anthropology departments here in the US. I know that, to be eligible for admission into classical departments, students must have a ton of ancient Greek and Latin. For anthropology... not so much.

I'm definitely lacking Greek and Latin (having discovered my interest in classics late) with only 2 years of Latin and 1 of Greek. I'm double majoring in anthropology, classical studies and minoring in geology. My interest lies within Late Bronze Age Greece and its Geoarchaeology...

Long story short... what is the big deal with the division between departments? What makes a classical archaeologist from the classics department so different from an anthro. dep. one? Is it worth (financially) completing a post bac to catch up on languages??

Edited by Clopez174
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I've actually had a bit of trouble with this myself because from what I've seen, if you're doing Classical archaeology through an Anthropology program, you have less of a focus on languages. It also depends on whether you're doing an MA or a PhD as well. 

Imo, since you're focused on Late Bronze Age, you might be okay with not "catching up" on languages and filling in the gaps once you're in the program. I would also suggest reaching out to the schools of interest to you to see what language requirements they have and whether they give options for ancient/modern languages, because I know some places will allow you to argue for different languages if you can make the case that others would be more relevant to you and schools will make allowances for you to study languages not commonly offered in undergraduate programs. 

I'm personally a little rusty on my languages as well and have had other students advise me specifically to seek out anthropology programs vs. Classics programs if my main interest was archaeology. Again, this might vary by school and program, so reaching out to current students might help you. 

I honestly don't understand the division between the departments myself. I think that if you go in on the Classical Studies side, there's more of an emphasis on languages vs. what might be more balanced and interdisciplinary in an anthropology program. This might not be true everywhere, but from my own observations, I've noticed that can sometimes be the case.

For the languages, I think if you can get funding for the post-pacc it might be worth it, but if you get in on other merits (your majors/minors are definitely a good combo!) then I think, a lot of the time, schools will be willing to fund for you to take the classes through their program so it would be covered if you're going into a fully funded graduate program. Some of the places I've looked at allow you to pass a course sequence in one ancient language (which I will probably do with Ancient Greek) and then you test out of the other ancient language and two modern languages. I think you should see what the language requirements are like in each school and which school would be the best fit for your research interests. I hope this helps! Please let me know if you want/need me to elaborate on anything. 

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