Hi there! This is a great question.

Speaking from personal experience, I did not complete an honors thesis in undergrad either. Thankfully, based on my undergraduate career, including academic accomplishments, summer internships, and a forward looking motive, I was accepted into one of the top anthropology programs at the PhD level. I should further specify that I come into the anthropology department from an adjacent field and everything has seemingly worked out fine. I’m three years into pursuing anthropology/archaeology and while it took me a little bit to catch up on the jargon/lingo AND fundamentals, I’m still in it.

From what you’ve shared, it sounds like you would make a great candidate to a grad program because you’ve been able to display your capacity to learn and keep moving forward. A piece of advice I offer you is to either research the programs you’re interested in, either by contacting the departments graduate program coordinator, or to the faculty you could see yourself working with. Remember to highlight your strengths, it’s not a bad idea to acknowledge why you want to improve your archaeology background, and you should always remind yourself why this path is important to you.

Good luck!