Julian Thomas was born in Epsom, Surrey, and studied at the Universities of Bradford (B. Tech. 1981) and Sheffield (MA 1982; PhD 1986). He has held academic positions at the University of Wales, Lampeter (1987-1993) and the University of Southampton (1994-2000). Since 2000 he has been Professor of Archaeology at the University of Manchester.

​

Julian’s principal research interests are in the Neolithic of Britain and northwest Europe, and the theory, philosophy and history of archaeology. Specific research themes include phenomenology and the ‘new materialisms’, material culture and identity, the relationship between archaeology and anthropology, and the influence of modern traditions of thought on archaeological interpretation. He has directed archaeological excavations at the Pict’s Knowe henge monument, the Holywood cursus complex, and the Dunragit palisade enclosure in southwest Scotland, and was a director of the Stonehenge Riverside Project. Since 2010, together with Keith Ray he has been engaged in a project investigating the prehistory of southwest Herefordshire. This has involved the excavation of a complex Bronze Age cairn at Olchon Court Farm, and the Early Neolithic buildings, long mounds and causewayed enclosure at Dorstone Hill.

​

Julian’s books include Time, Culture and Identity (1996), Archaeology and Modernity (2004), The Birth of Neolithic Britain (2013) and (with K. Ray) Neolithic Britain: The Transformation of Social Worlds (2018). Recently, he was an associate editor of The Encyclopaedia of Archaeological Sciences (Wiley 2019). He is a member of the editorial boards of The Journal of Social Archaeology, the Journal of Material Culture, Time and Mind, and Current Swedish Archaeology. In 2018 he was international member of the Chaco Landscapes working group, which produced a white paper for the US National Parks Department on the preservation of prehistoric landscapes in New Mexico. He has been secretary of the World Archaeological Congress, and vice-president of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and is a life member of the Collingwood Society.