The Department of Archaeology at the University of Durham (GB) has the largest concentration of archaeologists in Britain who are actively researching and publishing on the history of their discipline. Fresh and far-ranging historical perspectives have been nurtured in our Department: from the history of Palaeolithic research to the medieval period; from local traditions to international developments. Durham academics have focused very strongly on the broad social and political influences on the historical trajectory of archaeological research, the ways in which archaeological research has influenced society, and issues of gender and identity. These research projects include: work on the shaping of core narratives and methodologies in Roman and Medieval archaeology; the impact of nineteenth-century European nationalism on the shaping of archaeology; French and Italian colonial archaeology at North African sites; the impact of British archaeologists in the archaeology of Spain; the nineteenth-century chronological foundation of European archaeology and the Three Age System; Canon William Greenwell and the social intellectual context of British archaeological research in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. As part of our participation in AREA, a study will be undertaken on British archaeology during the 1920s and 1930s in connection to socialism and fascism.