Example archaeology dissertation topic 3:

Sutton Hoo revisited – a comparative study with Swedish burial grounds.

Discovered in 1939, the ship-burial and associated graves at Sutton Hoo unearthed the richest early medieval burial site in England. Its importance as an archaeological site is thus unquestioned for the understanding that it has given to the reign and times of Raedwald. This dissertation takes a more international view of the importance of Sutton Hoo and accordingly compares the finds at Sutton Hoo with those unearthed in Vendel and Vasgard, in Sweden. In so doing this dissertation is particularly interested in what the similarity of artefacts can tell both archaeologists and historians as to the nature of sea-trading patterns in the sixth and seventh centuries (as documented by Bede) as well as the importance, within Swedish noble culture of the time of sending children away from home to be raised and tutored by relatives abroad.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Arrhenius, B. (1983). ‘The chronology of the Vendel graves’. In, Lamm, J.P. and Nordström, H-A. (eds), Vendel period studies. Stockholm: Museum of National Antiquities, pp. 39-70.
• Bede (c. 731, 1969). Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, ed. and tr. B. Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, Bede’s ecclesiastical history of the English people. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Evans, A.C. (2001). ‘Sutton Hoo and Snape, Vendel and Valsgarde’. In, Hulten, P. (ed.), The true story of the Vandals. Värnamo: Museum Vandalorum, pp. 48-63.