Anthropology and History

Anthropology and history are disciplines that complement each other in ways that enrich both. Anthropology uses long-term engagement with living communities to understand the diversity of human social organisation, belief systems, and cultural practices, drawing on fieldwork and comparative analysis to build knowledge of what it means to be human across different contexts. History examines the past through the documents, objects, and traces that people left behind, seeking to understand how events unfolded, how societies changed, and how the present came to be.

Studying them together gives you tools for understanding both the synchronic diversity of human experience across cultures and the diachronic dimension of how human life changes over time.

At Aberdeen this four-year MA (Hons) programme combines a thorough grounding in anthropological theory and method with a broad engagement with history across different periods and places. The university's five centuries of history provide a rich local context, and its northern identity gives distinctive character to the intellectual environment. You will develop the skills to engage with human experience across time and space, using anthropological perspectives to contextualise historical inquiry and historical understanding to situate anthropological comparisons.

A year abroad is embedded in the programme.

Graduates move into careers in the civil service, heritage and museum work, international development, education, journalism, the third sector, research, and any profession where the capacity to understand human behaviour and cultural context is an asset. The combination of anthropological analysis and historical knowledge is valued across a wide range of employers. Many graduates also continue to postgraduate study in anthropology, history, or related fields.