Definitely mixed feelings about this unit! I took it as an elective because it seemed really interesting and I like history. On the one hand, I had a really great time doing a wide variety of different assignments and activities. Weekly tutorials were 45 minutes and varied from excavations to glass bottle analysis to worksheets to art exhibitions to debates. There was lots of collaboration within the tutorials, so I met a lot of lovely people and looked forward to it, but a lot of the weeks they would be super vague about what was actually required of us. The UC's often forgot to upload the worksheets, which had the content that needed to be done before attending. The lecture slides were uploaded in a really odd format and were illegible when downloaded, and many of the lectures were rushed and didn't really go much into detail at all; if anything, they would briefly mention a topic and expect everyone to know the context behind it. This was its own issue! The pre-readings for this unit were genuinely insane. I tried to keep up for the first 2 weeks, but there would be genuinely 30+ pages of multiple textbooks per week, on top of one in-person and up to 2 pre-recorded lectures per week; they also included a podcast which one of the UC's runs (which, don't get me wrong, was super cool; I just simply did not have time for it), and, as mentioned already, linked a 4-hour documentary for one of the weeks, I get that it is also a core archaeology unit, but on the complete other side of this, all of the "required" prereadings and lectures were almost completely irrelevant to the actual assessed content? The major assessment was a research essay on a separate topic; the weekly worksheets had their own set of pre-reading content each week, and don't even get me started on the debates. From my understanding, it was their first or second year attempting a new type of group work assessment, which in this case was archaeological debates. We got randomly separated into groups of 3-5, and had to do 2 debates on an array of controversial archaeology topics. In theory, this seemed really interesting and fun, but it was soooo badly organised. I was really lucky and had a lovely group who were all involved and pulled their weight, but I spoke to lots of people who could not even contact their team members until the literal morning of the debates, and that was obviously not enough time to prepare sources and references for every argument, as well as assigning different roles to each person in the group, i.e. affirmative, rebuttal, etc. Obviously this can be common with group work, but it really did not help that the UCs kind of just treated it like it had nothing to do with them, often giving no alternatives to the groups which had 2 or 3 team members not even show up, and just told them to 'try their best'. It's not like something you could just casually Google is what I am trying to say; it took a lot more effort than was rewarded. The lecturers and UC's did seem genuinely passionate about archaeology, maybe a bit in over their heads? They had a bit of a communication problem, and it happened a few different times that they would give different responses to students on the same question, one of which was the major report/essay, and how we were not allowed to use any photographs in our video summaries that were not from academic journals, genuinely a really silly rule, because it meant that we couldn't use anything from museums or archaeological sites (would've helped for niche sites); one UC was made aware of this rule at the same time that we were... which was when the question was finally answered after a lecture. They also rarely answered emails, taking at least a few days, which would normally be fine except for the fact that there was little to no information on the LMS, or it would be conflicting with itself! Even the major assessment was not clarified whether we should be writing in the style of an essay or an academic report, since there were both descriptions in the assessment outline, until probably a few weeks before it was due. Despite a higher workload than was expected for a first-year elective unit, I overall had a fun time researching and writing the major assessment; there were lots of thought-provoking topics to choose from, and the tutorials were overall positive despite the main hiccups. The organisation for this unit could definitely be improved, but the content is still generally interesting, and I would recommend it if you are looking for a fun elective to take. But proceed with caution!!!!!

- Was super excited to do this unit and learn about history, as that's one of my favourite topics, however the lectures each week ran through SO much history and context in one 45 minute lecture that absolutely none of it was retained - no building on past knowledge, or linking, and it made the lectures really cumbersome to go to - The organisation of the unit was terrible. Information on assessments were different depending on what part of LMS you looked at, UCs basically never replied to queries until like 3-4 business days later, and there was practically no guidelines or help at all for the new debates added to the unit. - for example, during week 12, they forgot to put the tutorial sheet up until 7pm the night before. That sucks, especially when that week is one of the busiest yet for students - The new debates were so poorly explained and organised, and for the first debate we had less than a week to contact our team members after the "contact group" button didn't work. Some people had no communication between their group members and it was kind of a "oh well, not our problem" reply from the UCs. - Pretty poor explanation on what we needed to do before our tutorial, and then a very harsh/not at all empathetic response when people came in not prepared and confused. - Feedback on our assessments was so minimal and unhelpful. Sourcing and academic formatting is one of the biggest mark allocations in the unit, and basically all of the assessments require proper formatting, however when you lost marks on your referencing, nothing was said on why you lost them or how to improve for the next assessment. Marking genuinely felt random and not allocated as said on the rubric (and there was no way of really knowing where it was you lost marks, due to the minimal feedback). - Loved the indigenous art exhibit, but felt like I had no time at all to actually admire the art and instead had to rush to finish the worksheet in the limited time we had - The debates were so much work for only 10%. The fact that two of the tutorial worksheets are worth 10% together, the same amount as the debate, is crazy - because that was a lot of workload!! - Lots of required readings which were not required at all. I spoke to lots of people from the unit and we all agreed none of us could do the required readings for each week, as it was totally impossible. I attempted it in the first week and realised not only was that workload unreasonable, but kind of irrelevant? We all didn't do the readings and it honestly didn't matter, which seems strange that they were "required reading" if they didn't really link with the content. --> For a specific example, one week we were asked to watch 4 HOURS worth of a documentary for IN ADDITION to the required readings. Of course no one did them, but it's just hard to get a grasp of what you actually need to do per week. - Assessments were honestly so separate to the lectures. If you want a unit that you don’t need to watch the lectures for the tutorial assessments, feel free. But it’s still lots of work with all the referencing and essay planning!

A great introduction to archaeology! A lot of people took this as an 'easy' elective but for the crowd that are actually interested in archaeology or majoring in it it is genuinely so much fun, content heavy, and requires your first look at how much research and engagement goes into this type of field. Tutorials are great if you actually engage with the content. Workshops are fantastic and let you get hands on with artefacts and other things. Tutorial and Workshop worksheets are simple and are each worth 5% of your grade. The major research project (split into 3 assessments) and debates are hefty but are interesting and you aren't left stranded if you need support. Classes are very short though so it is hard to make friends in this one if that is an important aspect to you. The LMS is full of extra resources and the lecturer/UC Alistair provides really cool podcasts with professional archaeologists from around the world on each weekly topic, which is such a great aspect to this unit. He has provided a lot of extra content to this unit so take full advantage of it while you can. If you get Laura as a tutorial lecturer and she seems blunt or harsh, she is a hard-working woman in a field dominated by men, give her a chance. She's got a wealth of knowledge and she's honestly so passionate about each topic, really learnt a lot from her when I stopped taking things personally. She gets her classes for 45 minutes each so you don't have a lot of time and neither does she, enjoy what you can! Loads of interesting content, a great textbook with really cool information, genuinely helped me realize archaeology is right for me.

This unit was a complete mess. The problems were many, but in short, it was terrible organised. Yes, it's easy to get marks by doing the bare minimum of weekly quizzes and worksheets, but the lectures are the most boring, unorganised 2 hours you can imagine. LMS was a total mess, with one continuous scrolling page for the whole semester, rather than folders for lecturers, worksheets etc. meaning that doing research for the essay was a nightmare. I actually met someone in this class who was doing ARCY for a major, and was dropping it because of how bad this class was. I cannot recommend it at all, even the tutors recognised how badly organised it was, though they were the only good part of the class, and were actually very helpful.

An easy unit to get high marks in. It is time consuming in terms of the weekly tutorial worksheets and the essay. However, those items are quite easy to get done. There is no exam for this subject! The lectures can be quite boring but do not need to be attended.