UCL Institute of Archaeology

India

Approximately 1 in 5 humans today live in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal). This population boasts a high diversity of cultural traditions and one of the longest and richest archaeological records of modern humans outside Africa. South Asia was home of the one of the world’s early Bronze Age civilizations, in the Indus Valley, and the homeland of two of the great world religions (Hinduism and Buddhism). These legacies have left a rich archaeological record from prehistoric settlements through to early historic monuments. Current Institute staff research in this region includes the study of past subsistence systems, the beginnings of agriculture, cultural response to climatic changes, primary and secondary urbanization, trade, and the archaeology of landscapes, both sacred and profane.

Research

Projects

• Buddhist monasteries and monasticism in ancient India
• Early Rice Project
• Environmental ethics in Ancient India
• Indus Geomorphology
• Landscape, Water and Religion in Ancient India
• Pleistocene Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence in Sri Lanka
• Ramtek Survey
• Sanchi Survey Project
• SEALINKS

Networks

• Out of Africa, Into Asia (external network)

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People

• Cristina Castillo
• Dorian Fuller
• Julia Shaw
• Alison Weisskopf

Degrees

• MA in Archaeology
• MA in Archaeology and Heritage of Asia
• MA in Comparative Art and Archaeology
• MSc in Environmental Archaeology

Courses

undergraduate

• Archaeology of Early South Asia
• Archaeology and Art of Early Historic Asia
  

graduate

• Cities, States and Religions in Ancient India
• Archaeological Heritage Management in Asia
• Archaeologies of Asia
• Archaeology of Buddhism

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