The first degree given for an archaeological subject at the University of Sheffield was to Percy Heathcote in 1930 as an MA for studying the burial mounds and stone circles on Stanton Moor and creating a small dedicated museum for the finds in Birchover.

[6][7] In 1931 Arthur Woodward who had been Director of the British School at Athens was appointed to a lectureship in the Department of Ancient History at Sheffield.

[14][7] In conjunction with the further appointments of John Collis and Graeme Barker in 1972, and Robin Dennell in 1973[14] the research portfolio of the Department had broadened to include specialisms in theory, excavation, field survey, economics, and environmental archaeology.

The appointment of Robin Torrence to teach anthropology, theory, and statistics (who had studied under Lewis Binford and Colin Refrew) in line with the department's expansion marked an increasing diversification and seminal interdisciplinary perspective on archaeological research.

[7] The Department of Ancient History had continued after the split with Prehistory had appointed several classical archaeologists that also taught and researched in conjunction with the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology: John Cherry, Ian Sanders, David Kennedy, and John Lloyd all joined and led major archaeological projects.

This change ushered in a strengthening of materials research in the Department of Archaeology and Prehistory during the 1990s with the appointment of Barbara Ottaway to teach metallurgy and later Caroline Jackson in glass.

[23] Postgraduates at the department founded Assemblage, an online peer-reviewed journal for graduate students to share their work, in 1994 with the first issue published in 1996.

[27] The Sheffield Centre for Archaeobotany and ancient Land-usE (SCALE) was also established during this period by researchers including Glynis Jones.

This included involvement in major UK infrastructure projects, such as John Barrett's work in Framework Archaeology during the expansion of Stanstead Airport and construction of Heathrow Terminal 5.

[31] Sub-disciplines were further built-upon with the appointment of Umberto Albarella in 2004 to grow the dedicated zooarchaeology lab[32] and Hugh Willmott to expand European Medieval archaeology research.

From 2011-2016, Hugh Willmott led excavations at Thornton Abbey in North Lincolnshire, during which the project uncovered the first instance in Britain of a Black Death mass grave found in a rural, rather than urban, area.

[35][36] Through the Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions 7th Framework Program, Ellery Frahm's research in the New Archaeological Research Network for Integrating Approaches to Ancient Material Studies-NARNIA (fronted by Vasiliki Kassianidou at the University of Cyprus) expanded the application of portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF) to source and survey obsidian in Armenia.

[40] In 2017, the department moved to new bespoke laboratories in the recently closed Sheffield Bioincubator (and renamed Ella Armitage Building after the archaeologist).

"[43] A letter to The Times beginning "We are dismayed at the news that the University of Sheffield's renowned Department of Archaeology is under threat of closure" was signed by leading British archaeologists, including Amy Bogaard, Graeme Barker, Chris Gosden, Melanie Giles, Richard Hodges, and Colin Renfrew.