About the Department of Archaeology and History
Studying the past opens our minds to what is possible. It shows us the paths taken – or not taken – to create our current world.
The Department of Archaeology and History offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, majors and short courses at La Trobe University’s Melbourne campus and online.
Our Department is part of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Our goal is to inspire students to join us in building knowledge about our world, and its many pasts, so that we can create a better future. We teach students to ask critical questions, analyse evidence and work ethically with communities.
Our History graduates pursue careers in education, government, galleries, libraries, archives, museums, research and the cultural sector.
Our Archaeology graduates work in the professional archaeology sector, heritage management, museums, research, academia, government, consulting, education and the media industry.
Our researchers deliver high impact outcomes. We are committed to ethical research, meaningful collaboration and sharing knowledge beyond the University. We work closely with Traditional Owners, industry, government, community partners, schools, the heritage sector and researchers around the world.
Through our research and teaching we explore how the peoples, places, objects, events and stories of the past are deeply relevant to the present, and for the future.
Learning through discovery
Whether you want to become an archaeologist, archivist, museum curator or policy adviser, a La Trobe degree in archaeology and/or history can open the door to a rewarding career.
Our archaeology students learn through fieldwork, laboratory training and industry engagement. They can gain experience in the Australian heritage sector, or on location at one of our international field projects around the world, where they can choose to study earliest origins in South Africa, mediaeval urbanism in Sri Lanka, or the environmental adaptations of farming communities in Central Asia.
Students learn from professional archaeologists and active researchers, with opportunities to join field schools and laboratory-based research. In La Trobe’s world-class laboratories students work with techniques used to date early human ancestors, reconstruct ancient environments, or understand past diets and lifeways.
Our history students have the opportunity to explore European, British, Asian, African, Australian and United States history, with a focus on settler colonialism and decolonisation, environmental history, migration, human rights and activism, gender and sexuality. By studying documents, objects, landscapes and stories we help explain the choices and events that have shaped the world we live in today.
Our students engage in and with historical debates, challenge established interpretations and methodologies, and learn how the past becomes history. They also have opportunities to study overseas, where they can apply their historical thinking to new contexts..
Understanding our past
We partner with communities, industry and cultural institutions to develop new understandings of the past and its significance today.
Our archaeologists are world-leading researchers who publish in top academic journals including Nature and Science. Our historians have an international reputation for distinguished, innovative and publicly engaged scholarship. From Pulitzer Prize winners to well-known media commentators, our staff have shaped how the past is interpreted, debated and shared.
Our research has major strengths in the study of Australia’s past alongside a global reach with projects in India, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Oman, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, United States and Vanuatu.
Across these regions our research brings significant thematic expertise in environmental adaptation, settler colonialism, human origins and migration, gender rights and labour movements, urban transitions and Australian deep-time history.
Research centres
Our staff make key contributions to La Trobe University's research centres.
The Centre for Human Security and Social Change works for inclusive social change. Staff work with a wide range of individuals, organisations and networks that are involved in social change with a particular, but not exclusive, focus on Indigenous Australia, the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
The Centre for the Study of the Inland is an interdisciplinary research centre with particular strengths in archaeology, history and social sciences. It specialises in place-based research with rural and regional communities, focusing on social transformations, environmental change and equitable resource sharing.