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Introduction to European Prehistory

When you'll study it
Semester 1
CATS points
15
ECTS points
7.5
Level
Level 5
Module lead
Carl Pollard
Academic year
2025-26

Module overview

The 10,000 years from the end of the last glacial to the emergence of Roman as a major European power were marked by dramatic changes in subsistence, social organisation, material worlds and cosmology. This module provides an introduction to the major themes that structure European later prehistory: from hunter- gatherer worlds to the spread of agriculture; the emergence of great ceremonial monuments and, in places, equally monumental settlements; the effect of the adoption of metallurgy, and the creation of extensive networks of contact and exchange; and the impact that Rome was to have on Iron Age societies in its broader hinterland. Through lectures and an individual project, a range of evidence will be explored. You will be introduced to current interpretive debates and the ways that archaeologists reconstruct prehistoric lifeways and world views.