Master of Arts by Research in History and Archaeology

Undertake a Master of Arts by Research in History and Archaeology at Flinders

Gain expertise in a specialised area of history and archaeology.

Expand your understanding of the cultural, social and political forces that shape and steer the world today by conducting research in history, archaeology or maritime archaeology.

Discover more about research at the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

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Why undertake a Master of Arts by Research in History and Archaeology at Flinders?

Become an international expert in your topic and gain expertise in a specialised area of history and archaeology.
Make a difference to the world. Your research has the potential to improve people’s lives by making sense of the past.
Be the first to explore a fascinating research question and fill a gap in current knowledge or answer a previously unresolved issue in your field.

Master of Arts by Research opportunities

Areas of research in History include:

Australian European and American history
Humanitarianism
Public health and welfare
Colonial expansion
Imperialism and migration
Social and cultural histories of war
Genocide and mass violence
Environmental history
Urban planning in the Soviet Union
History of domestic violence in Australia
Abortion politics in America

Areas of research in Archaeology include:

Ancient civilisations
Cultural heritage management
Historical archaeology
Human evolution
Indigenous archaeology
Maritime and underwater archaeology
Space archaeology
Environment and society
Symbolic communication
Archaeological Science
Palaeoenvironmental Change

Your career

A Masters of Arts by Research gained in History or Archaeology at Flinders equips you with a wide range of skills valued in all types of organisations and careers. It will enhance your creative practice, analytical and communication skills, provide you with the ability to quickly learn new concepts and adapt to change, and enhance your time management, organisation and resilience skills.

A Masters of Arts by Research is a stepping-stone to a career as a professional researcher in the public sector, think tanks, charities, universities, and private corporations. Individuals with a Master of Arts by Research in History or Archaeology are highly sought after for various professions in public and private organisations and have found roles in writing, the public service, consulting, advising, teaching and publishing.

The job market in archaeological and heritage consultancy is healthy and there are often professional positions available and advertised within archaeology-specific and environmental consultancies.

Potential occupations include:

academic
writer
consultant or advisor
professional researcher.

Potential employers include:

universities
think tanks
public sector
charities
private corporations.

Potential research supervisors

Flinders History and Archaeology academic staff are recognised as leaders in their fields both in Australia and globally. Our academic supervisors draw on their extensive knowledge and exciting research covering topics related to periods from the pre-historic through to the present, and from the local to international spaces and into outer space.

Associate Professor Wendy Van Duivenvoorde

Associate Professor Wendy Van Duivenvoorde explains the research opportunities available to HDR students.

History supervisors

Dr Romain Fathi	First world war studies, war commemorations, warfare and violence, Australian national identity, ANZAC.
Professor Matt Fitzpatrick	Comparative imperialism, German history, culture and politics, European history, genocide studies, history of ideas.
Dr Prudence Flowers	Social movement activism, modern conservatism, medicine and public health, the politics of gender, sexuality, and the body.
Associate Professor Catherine Kevin	Australian cultural history, Australian studies/history, gender studies, historical studies.
Professor Peter Monteath	Modern European and Australian history with a particular interest in prisoners of war, internment, and the German presence in Australia.
Dr Evan Smith	Criminology, historical studies, political science, law and legal studies.
Associate Professor Andrekos Varnava	Imperial/colonial, war/conflict, and migration histories.
Associate Professor Christine Winter	History of science and migration and identity studies, Australian cultural history, emigration, first world war, history, human rights, migrants and refugees, religion and religious studies, war studies.
Dr James Kane	History of the Crusades, with a particular focus on crusading ideology, terminology, and historiography.
Dr Alessandro Antonello	Environmental history, the environmental humanities, history of science, international history.

Archaeology supervisors

Dr Jonathan Benjamin	Submerged landscape archaeology, the impacts of sea-level rise on past societies, aerial archaeology, the neolithisation of Europe, coastal and maritime archaeology, underwater photographic and photogrammetric site recording.
Associate Professor Heather Burke	Standing structures, style and social identity, ideology, class and capitalism, the Frontier, contact and conflict, working class archaeology, the archaeology of incarceration and asylums, women and gender in historical archaeology, heritage interpretation and the contemporary uses of archaeology, archaeology of the Chinese in Australia, archaeology of WWII, artefact analysis and historical archaeology
Dr Alice Gorman	Space archaeology, astronomical and space sciences, anthropology, cultural heritage management of space exploration, gender studies.
Dr Ania Kotarba	Coastal, maritime and landscape archaeology, cultural heritage and international maritime trade and exchange within the Indian Ocean and its satellite basins from the Bronze Age to Middle Ages (with a special interest in the Hellenistic and Roman periods).
Dr John McCarthy	Digital storytelling, Maritime archaeology, Post-medieval seafaring.
Dr Ian Moffat	Archaeological geophysics, isotope geochemistry, sedimentology, sequence stratigraphy, geoarchaeology, site formation processes.
Dr Mike Morley	Geoarchaeology, sediments, stratigraphy and microstratigraphy, archaeological caves and rock shelters, archaeological site formation processes, Middle and Late Pleistocene hominin dispersals, human-environment interactions, fluvial, coastal and montane geomorphology and landscape dynamics, tephrochronology.
Professor Donald Pate	Archaeological chemistry, environmental chemistry, stable isotope biogeochemistry, bio-archaeology, the human skeleton and anthropological archaeology.
Dr Martin Polkinghorne	Archaeology of Southeast Asia, Angkor, archaeometry, archaeology of the early modern period, political economy and archaeology.
Associate Professor Amy Roberts	Archaeology and anthropology of Indigenous Australia, Yorke Peninsula archaeology and anthropology, River Murray and Mallee archaeology and anthropology, rock art, Indigenous traditional fishing, the relationship between archaeology and Indigenous peoples, the relationship between archaeology and anthropology, archaeology, anthropology and intellectual property, archaeological science, stable carbon, nitrogen isotope analysis.
Professor Claire Smith	Indigenous communities, rock art, symbolic communication, decolonization, Indigenous health and well-being, heritage as a driver of sustainable development.
Associate Professor Wendy Van Duivenvoorde	Maritime trade and shipbuilding in the ancient Mediterranean and Northern Europe, nautical archaeology, classical archaeology, computer applications in archaeology, archaeobotany, archaeometallurgy, technological advancement, dendro-archaeology.
Dr Daryl Wesley	Rock art, heritage conservation, the archaeology of culture contact between Southeast Asians, Europeans and Aboriginal people in remote north-western Arnhem Land through hybrid economies, rock art of Arnhem Land.
Associate Professor Liam Brady	Indigenous archaeology, anthropology and history, rock art, material culture, ethnoarchaeology, seascapes, landscape archaeology.

How to apply

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