Professor Glynis Jones

Professor
Director MSc Environmental Archaeology and Palaeoeconomy

BSc Honours in Zoology, Cardiff University; Certificate in Education, Cardiff University; MPhil in Archaeology, Cambridge University; PhD in Archaeology, Cambridge University

Email address: g.jones@sheffield.ac.uk

Telephone +44 (0)114 2222904

Department address
Department of Archaeology
Northgate House
West Street
Sheffield S1 4ET

Biography

After graduating with a degree in zoology from Cardiff, I worked as a science teacher in the UK and Greece for some years before joining the British School at Athens as a research assistant in archaeological materials science at the Fitch Laboratory.

I returned to Britain in 1978 to undertake an MPhil, followed by a PhD, in Archaeology, at the University of Cambridge. I then worked as an environmental archaeologist at the Department of Urban Archaeology, Museum of London, a post I left to take up my current position at the University of Sheffield in 1984.

Research interests

• The origins and spread of agriculture
• Dating the spread of crops through Europe
• The investigation of crop domestication and spread through DNA analysis
• Ecological approaches to crop domestication
• The use of weed ecology in the identification of crop husbandry practices
• Stable isotopes as a method for identifying the intensity of crop cultivation practices
• Biomolecular methods for the identification of plant oils
• The role of crop cultivation in the Neolithic to Iron Age in Britain/Europe
• Ethnoarchaeological approaches to the investigation of early farming

Current research projects

Evolutionary origins of agriculture (ERC project) with Dr. C. Osborne, Prof. T.A. Brown (Manchester), Dr. M. Charles, Prof. M. Rees, Dr. N. Fieller and Dr. E. Stillman.

Origin of agriculture: an ecological perspective on crop domestication (NERC project) with Dr. M. Charles, Prof. C. Buck and Dr. P Blackwell.

Crop stable isotope ratios: new approaches to palaeodietary and agricultural reconstruction (NERC project) with Dr. A Bogaard (Oxford), Dr. T. Heaton (NIGL), Prof. R. Evershed (Bristol) and Dr. M. Charles.

Domestication of Europe (NERC consortium project) with Prof. T.A. Brown (Manchester), Dr. M. Charles, Prof. M. Jones (Cambridge), Prof. W. Powell (NIAB).

Identifying ancient land use through the functional ecology of crop weeds (NERC project) with Dr. M. Charles and Dr. J. Hodgson.

Oil in Bronze Age Northern Greece (INSTAP project) with Prof. C. Heron (Bradford), Dr. S. Valamoti (Thessaloniki) and Dr. V. Kiriatzi (Athens).

Plant economy at Neolithic and Chalcolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey with Dr. M. Charles and Dr. A Bogaard (Oxford).

Research supervision

I would be interested in supervising research students in any of the following research areas:

• Archaeobotany
• Early agriculture
• Ecological approaches to crop domestication
• The use of weed ecology in the identification of crop husbandry practices
• Ethnoarchaeological approaches to the investigation of early farming

I am currently supervising PhD students on the following topics:

• The Archaeobotany of Sos Hoyuk, Turkey
• The Agricultural Economies of Early Urban Mesopotamia
• Changing Arable Subsistence in Bronze and Iron Age South West Britain
• Crop Watering Practices in the Neolithic and Bronze Age: the Stable Carbon Isotope Approach

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Research Skills in Archaeology
• Bioarchaeology
• From Households to Empires

Postgraduate

• Biomolecular Archaeology
• Computing and Data Analysis for Archaeologists
• Method and Theory in Archaeobotany
• Theory and Method in Economic Archaeology

Selected publications:

• Valamoti, S. and Jones, G. 2010. Bronze and oil: a possible link between the introduction of tin and Lallemantia to northern Greece. Annual of the British School at Athens 105: 83-96.
• Jones, G., Charles, Bogaard, A. and Hodgson, J. 2010. Crops and weeds: the role of weed functional types in the identification of crop husbandry methods. Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 70-77.
• Heaton, T.H., Jones, G., Halstead, P. Tsipropoulos, T. 2009. Variations in the 13C/12C ratios of modern wheat grain, and implications for interpreting data from Bronze Age Assiros Toumba, Greece. Journal of Archaeological Science 36: 2224-33.
• Lister, D.L., Thaw, S., Bower, M.A., Jones, H., Charles, M., Jones, G., Smith, L.M.J., Howe, C.J., Brown, T.A. and Jones, M.K. 2009. Latitudinal variation in a photoperiod response gene in European barley: insight into the spread of agriculture from historic specimens. Journal of Archaeological Science 36: 1092-8.
• Jones, G. and Legge, A.G. 2008. Evaluating the role of cereal cultivation in the neolithic: charred plant remains from Hambledon Hill, in R. Mercer and F. Healy Hambledon Hill, Dorset, England. Excavation and Survey of a Neolithic Monument Complex and its Surrounding Landscape. English Heritage: 469-76.
• Jones, H., Leigh, F.J., Mackay, I., Bower, M.A., Smith, L.M.J., Charles, M.P., Jones, G., Jones, M.K., Brown, T.A. and Powell, W. 2008. Population based resequencing reveals that the flowering time adaptation of cultivated barleys originated east of the Fertile Crescent. Molecular Biology and Evolution 25: 2211-9.
• Jones, G. and Rowley-Conwy, P. 2007. On the importance of cereal cultivation in the British Neolithic, in S. Colledge and J. Conolly (eds.) The Origins and Spread of Domestic Plants Southwest Asia and Europe. Left Coast Press: 391-419.
• van der Veen, M. and Jones, G. 2006. A reanalysis of agricultural production and consumption: implications for understanding the British Iron Age. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 15: 217-28.

Full publications list

Conferences

• Symposium of the International Workgroup for Palaeoethnobotany (IWGP). Wilhelmshaven, June 2010.
• Keynote lecture at the Quaternary Research Association (QRA) annual meeting The human dimension in rapid environmental change, January 2009.

Other professional activities

• Member of the REF sub-panel for Geography, Environmental Studies and Archaeology.
• Member of the NERC Peer Review College.
• Member of the Association for Environmental Archaeology.
• Member of the British School at Athens Laboratory sub-committee.
• Member of the editorial board of Journal of Archaeological Science.
• British representative on the steering panel for the International Work Group for Palaeoethnobotany (IWGP).