The proposed separation of archaeology into its own Tripos, as has been proposed this week, is not the first time that Triposes accommodating the human, social and political sciences have been altered.

Until 1970, students could only take papers on social science topics, such as politics and sociology, within the framework of existing Triposes such as history and economics.

The creation of the Social and Political Sciences (SPS) Committee in 1970 was a key step legitimating psychology, sociology and political science as independent fields of study.

The SPS Tripos, which became the Politics, Psychology and Sociology (PPS) Tripos in 2009 following the creation of the Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies (PPSIS), went from strength to strength.

The interdisciplinary Tripos benefitted from the expertise of practitioners in their individual subjects, including the Cambridge school of political thought pioneered by Quentin Skinner and continued by David Runciman, Christopher Hill’s contributions to the study of foreign policy analysis, and Patrick Baert’s contributions to the study of social theory.

The original Archaeology and Anthropology Tripos, which was founded 100 years ago this year, enjoyed academic success with such notable academics as Alan Macfarlane and graduates of the Tripos including actor Hugh Laurie and former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

In 2013, the PPS and Arch & Anth Triposes combined to form the Human, Social and Political Sciences Tripos, comprising of politics, international relations, sociology, anthropology and archaeology, including subfields such as Assyriology and biological anthropology.

Psychology was simultaneously removed from HSPS and became its own course, the Psychological and Behavioural Sciences (PBS) Tripos, intended to encompass all aspects of human behaviour.

The new Archaeology Tripos, which will take its first students in 2017 and thereby reduce the number of students admitted to the continuing HSPS course, is intended to give archaeology an independent identity in the same way that psychology was given that through the PBS Tripos.

Ben Simpson, a HSPS finalist, commenting on the plans for a separate Archaeology Tripos, stated that he was “unsurprised” because “archaeology was always the rebellious child of HSPS” which “didn’t fit in”.

However, he was concerned about the “prestige” of the HSPS Tripos following the removal of archaeology, given that the removal of a subject would mean that the name HSPS would provoke “confusion”.

He stated that in order for HSPS to maintain name recognition with employers and a reputation as a prestigious and legitimate academic endeavour, it “needs to be more consistent”.

Another HSPS third year, speaking anonymously on the changes, said that the splitting of Social and Biological Anthropology into two separate Triposes “didn’t make a lot of sense” even though “most politics students take Soc Anth in their first year and most archaeologists take Bio Anth.”

“I understand why Archaeology wants to split off again, and that both Triposes will still be able to borrow each other’s modules, but the course has now changed so often it has lost all name recognition and anthropologists do seem to lose out.”

A third year PBS student who wished to remain anonymous, when asked how the course fared after its break off from PPS, told Varsity that it “wasn’t the degree I thought I was signing up for” as the option to take four psychology papers is only given in the final year, with 50 per cent of papers in the first two years being borrowed.

“Psychology is such a broad topic that there is definitely enough content to be able to teach three full years of psychology related things. By always being the additional students in a department we start at a disadvantage as never have the same background as those doing the module.”

Another PBS student said that it “ha[d] been a bit of a nightmare at times”, adding that “the frequency of supervisions was very different among different colleges and while we had quite a lot other friends who had hardly any because basically no one knew what was required”.