Yale students have access to some of the finest collegiate resources in the world.
Archaeological Studies students may research using the second-largest academic library in the world, extremely important and extensive museum collections, and state-of-the-art research facilities ranging from the council’s Yale Initiative for the Study of Ancient Pyrotechnology to the Center for Earth Observation.
The primary mission of the Yale University Archaeological Laboratories (YUAL) is to facilitate and support our research and teaching initatives as well as studies of Yale’s archaeological research and teaching collections. The YUAL/Y-PYRO website describes our laboratory spaces and instruments, from sample preparation equipment to our scanning electron microscope and other in-house analytical tools.
Since 2017, the Yale Initiative for the Study of Ancient Pyrotechnology (Y-PYRO) serves as an umbrella organization for archaeological research that can be conceptualized in terms of the control of fire. New technologies and materials, until recently in human history, depended on attaining and controlling greater and greater temperatures. This process began as early as 1.5 million years ago, when control of fire enabled changes in human behavior, diet, and even technology, such as heat treatment of stone, wood implements, and complex adhesives to join them as compound tools. A particular focus is how increasingly sophisticated control of fire, as revealed through studies of the archaeological record, became a critical stimulus to the emergence of behavioral, cultural, and societal complexity around the world.
The Peabody Museum of Natural History contains extensive collections, from Incan pottery and Egyptian statues to paleontological examples of ancient species, available to students and scholars for research. The Peabody boasts one of the most important collections in the country, and our faculty includes several curators and curatorial affiliates of the museum’s Anthropology Divison.
The Yale University Art Gallery gives our students opportunities to work with spectacular objects of art in dedicated study areas. The collections most relevant to Archaeological Studies students include Ancient Art, Art of the Ancient Americas, African Art, and Asian Art.
The Yale University Library System is the second-largest academic collection in the world. With around 13 million volumes spread over 22 buildings, the collection is one of the world’s great centers for scholarly research. Sterling Memorial Library, the largest and most central library on campus, contains around four million volumes, whereas the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library offers access to one of the world’s largest collections of scarce books, unique manuscripts, and related archival materials.