Expert: John J. Shea - 8/17/2006

Question
Out of curiosity, is it possible to specialize in more than one field of archaeology (specifically, I'd like to study prehistory and classical) without jumping hurdles to find a good college?  Also, you mentioned that Boston University is where you studied for prehistoric archaeology, but where is a good place to study Classical?

Answer
Sarah
It is certainly possible, indeed advisable at the undergrad level, to study more than one area of archaeology.  You shouldn't specialize until grad school, and even then, only when your writing your thesis.  As a grad student, I took classes on South American and Central American archaeology, even though my main areas of interest were Africa and Southwest Asia.  I never ended up working in either area, but having learned something about them allows me to understand the work of my colleagues who work in those areas.
BU has an excellent program in classical archaeology.  To learn more about this, contact either Professor James Wiseman, Professor Norman Hammond or Professor Rick Elia.
Other good programs include the usual suspects, the Ivies (Harvard, Yale, UPenn, Columbia, NYU [actually NYU just got a huge private grant to start up a program focused on Old World archaeology]), but as you know, such schools are ultra-competitive for admissions.  If you are a resident of California, UCLA and Berkeley have excellent programs too.  Generally speaking, the bigger the school, the bigger the archaeology offerings.  A lot of the classical archaeologists in such schools may be tucked away in Art History or History departments.
Cheers,
John Shea