The Department of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen was established in October 2007, and as such is the youngest institution of its kind in Britain. We are fortunate to have received very substantial levels of investment, including two endowed chairs, and we have undoubtedly benefited from the enthusiasm generated by the unparalleled opportunity to build a new department of this kind from scratch. As a measure of our success we have grown rapidly, and in terms of staff numbers we are now the second-largest Department of Archaeology in Scotland, after Glasgow.

As of September 2009 we have a total undergraduate complement of about 250, 14 PhD students with funding in-hand for several more, and a number of incoming postdocs. Our Masters programmes launch in 2010. Uniquely in Britain, our Department focuses on the archaeology of the North, roughly speaking the upper third of the globe encompassing Northern Britain, Scandinavia and the Baltic, Northern Russia and Siberia through to high-latitude North America. We have a special emphasis on the North Atlantic and North Pacific, reflected in our field schools in Alaska, Iceland and Scotland, with a new project due to start shortly in northern Japan. New developments will be posted on our website, www.abdn.ac.uk/archaeology/