Julian Stewart Thomas (born 1959) is a British archaeologist, publishing on the Neolithic and Bronze Age prehistory of Britain and north-west Europe. Thomas has been vice president of the Royal Anthropological Institute since 2007. He has been Professor of Archaeology at the University of Manchester since 2000, and is former secretary of the World Archaeological Congress. Thomas is perhaps best known as the author of the academic publication Understanding the Neolithic in particular, and for his work with the Stonehenge Riverside Project.
Education
Born in Epsom, Surrey, Thomas studied archaeology at the University of Bradford, where he acquired a Bachelor of Technology (BTech) degree in archaeological science in 1981. He then transferred to the University of Sheffield and graduated with a Master of Arts (MA) degree in 1982, and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1986 for his research on the "social and economic change in the Neolithic of Wessex and the Upper Thames valley".
Career
Between 1987 and 2000 Thomas was a lecturer in archaeology at the University of Wales, Lampeter (1987–1993) and at Southampton University (1994–2000). Thomas worked with Historic Scotland between 1994 and 2002, excavating prehistoric sites in Dumfries and Galloway as "Director of archaeological excavations of Neolithic and later prehistoric sites" – the record of which was published as Place and Memory: Excavations at the Pict's Knowe, Holywood and Holm Farm in 2007.
Originally published as Rethinking the Neolithic in 1991, Thomas revised his work, which was republished as Understanding the Neolithic in 1999. The book challenged the conventionally held view that human lifestyles transformed in Great Britain, from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic farmers – a process known as the "Neolithic Revolution"– through interpretive analysis of "social theory, anthropology and critical hermeneutics".
Between 1994 and 1999 Thomas was secretary of the World Archaeological Congress and became academic series editor (a pro bono (unpaid) position held jointly with Martin Hall) of the Routledge series Themes in Archaeology – which moved to Left Coast Press as the One World Archaeology Series in 2008. Ten books in the series were published during their tenure – between 2000 and 2005.
Thomas took up the Chair of Archaeology at Manchester University in April 2000, a position he still holds.
Thomas is co-director of the Stonehenge Riverside Project – a collaborative archaeological study begun in 2003 as a consortium of university teams, funded by the AHRC and the National Geographic Society. During excavations of sites surrounding Stonehenge – including Stonehenge Cursus, the Avenue and Woodhenge – Thomas found evidence of a large settlement of Neolithic houses, at Durrington Walls, nearby and discovered the prehistoric henge and stone circle, known as "Bluestonehenge", on the west bank of the Avon. Thomas speculates that the 25 bluestones at Stonehenge – originating in the Preseli Hills, away in modern-day Pembrokeshire, Wales – stood in a circle, surrounded by a henge, at Bluestonehenge for around 500 years before being dismantled and moved to their current location around 2500 BCE.
Thomas has been Vice President of the Royal Anthropological Institute since his election in 2007 and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (also since 2007).
Thomas is married to Catherine, and has two daughters – Morag and Rowan and two step-daughters Lucie and Anna.
Publications
Sole author
Rethinking the Neolithic (1991), revised and republished as Understanding the Neolithic (1999) Time, Culture and Identity: An Interpretive Archaeology (1998) Archaeology and Modernity (2004)
Co–author
Writing the past in the present (1990) by Frederick Baker, Julian Thomas
Anglesey archaeological landscape project: second interim report 1991 (1992) by Mark Edmonds, Julian Thomas, Matthew Johnson, St. David's University College, (Lampeter, Wales), Department of Archaeology Place and Memory: Excavations at the Pict's Knowe, Holywood and Holm Farm by Julian Thomas, Matt Leivers, Julia Roberts, Rick Peterson Overcoming the modern invention of material culture: proceedings of the TAG session, Exeter 2006 (2007) by Vítor Oliveira Jorge, Julian Thomas, Theoretical Archaeology Group (England). Conference