<p>I'm interested in studying archaeology/anthropology in college. I'm also interested in ethnoarchaeology and specifically European cultures. What should I major in and what schools have good programs?</p>
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<p>I recommend looking for a college with a good anthropology program and with an archaeology field school and with good study abroad opportunities. Anthropology, chemistry, biology, geology, classical studies, religious studies, modern languages, or history could all be interesting majors to pair with archaeology.</p>
<p>What kind of college are you looking for? Stats? Finances? Home state?</p>
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<p>Do a search - there have been other threads on this topic.</p>
<p>Here are some good Anthropology depts. (per the NRC rankings—in roughly this order). Since these are graduate ranking they don’t give a good idea of the quality of undergrad education in a dept, but they do give some idea of faculty strength.
Penn State, Duke, Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, Michigan, UC-Irvine, Emory, WUStL, Arizona, UC-Davis, Berkeley, Stony brook, UCLA, Utah, UPenn, Georgia, NYU, Binghamton, Oregon, Michigan State, Chicago, Wisconsin, Illinois, U Washington, Connecticut, Alaska, UC-Santa Barbara, Texas, New Mexico, Yale, Kent State, UC-Santa Cruz, Indiana, U Mass, Colorado, Arizona State</p>
<p>You’ll have to check them out yourself to see which are strong in archaeology and which have faculty who offer coursework in your areas of interest. Alternatively, since you stated some rather specific interests, you must know who publishes in the field. Where do they teach? Check out their depts.</p>
<p>On the other hand, as another poster suggested, it depends on your stats, finances, and overall fit. Don’t choose a school based on a particular subspecialty in an academic discipline. There’s much more that goes into choosing a school, and you very well might change your mind, as many students do.</p>
<p>Besides, even if you stick with anthropology, it’s much too early in your education to focus in on a particular subspecialty of a subspecialty. Anthropology is characterized by a broad, comparative perspective and by it’s nature draws on many other fields. In a word, don’t specialize prematurely—it won’t be beneficial in the long-run.</p>
<p>From what little I know about the field, I think you’ve gotten good advice so far. Anthropology is the most sensible major for your interests. European countries maintain a tight grip on their sites, and European scholars are very capable of excavating sites in their own countries, so it is quite rare for an American scholar to focus on Europe instead of, say, West Africa or Polynesia. It is therefore unlikely to matter much where you go as long as your college has a strong program in archaeology, since your best bet for getting coursework in European archaeology is spending a semester or two abroad. </p>
<p>Things to look for in a good archaeology program are
– Size - you need at least three archaeologists for critical mass
– Dig opportunities - Do faculty members run their own digs? What funding is there for excavating? Does the department offer a field school?
– A variety of cultural courses - "Mayan Culture and Archaeology, “North American Archaeology,” “World Prehistory,” etc.
– A variety of technical courses - GIS, zooarchaeology, botanical analysis, lithic analysis, etc.
– Special facilities - archaeological collections, anthropology museum, archaeology labs, etc.</p>
<p>Don’t forget to consider languages. Europe has been a very diverse place over the ages with a lot of different cultures and languages. You might need Greek and especially Latin for some things (e.g. studying the Celts/Gauls), whereas German and its relatives would be more suitable for other things. Old Irish or other Celtic languages would be helpful if you’re interested in Britain specifically, but you’re unlikely to find that at the undergraduate level. As a bare minimum, look for colleges with strong German and classics departments. </p>
<p>I agree with the others; much depends on your stats and what you want in terms of size, location, financial aid, feel/atmosphere, etc.</p>
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<p>I’ve heard Cornell does.</p>
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