Stanford Archaeology Center

 

WELCOME

Since its inception in 2000, the Stanford Archaeology Center has experienced rapid growth. In 2005, the program moved to Building 500, just off Stanford’s Main Quad. This newly renovated facility encompasses nearly 15,000 square feet of lecture halls, seminar rooms, offices, and research laboratories dedicated to fieldwork, teaching, research, and public programs.

Our goal is to share our passion for research by giving students a strong basis in the discipline and its ethical standards while providing the opportunity for diverse and open-minded enquiry in facing the challenges that confront archaeologists today. The Archaeology Center at Stanford provides a forum for interaction amongst faculty and students in different parts of the University. It promotes theoretical, methodological and ethical innovation and encourages visiting scholars, post-doctoral researchers, faculty and students to work side-by-side on a daily basis. There is a strong global range of interests, with student and faculty researchers working from Southeast Asia to Europe, Africa and the Americas.

We aim to train the future leaders in archaeology and heritage. We provide a robust academic program that has a multi-disciplinary and global reach. We believe that nurturing an environment of collaboration gives rise to opportunities for growth and innovation—elements that make for a stronger generation of archaeologists. We recognize that today archaeology is no longer just about digging up the past. It is also about contributing to the present.

Daily life in the Archaeology Center involves a unique blending of archaeologists from different departments and perspectives as they work in laboratories or meet at coffee time to talk and debate. There are two weekly seminars, and four Distinguished Lectures each year. The Center collaborates with other units in the university to support post-doctoral researchers, and it promotes research in specific areas from conservation of natural and cultural capital to human rights and heritage ethics. It supports public programs for diverse communities.