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ArchaeologyPart of Humanities
Phone:
(023) 8059 4198
Email:
C.J.Pollard@soton.ac.uk

Dr Joshua Pollard BA, PhD, F.S.A.

Professor of Archaeology

Dr Joshua Pollard's photo

Joshua Pollard is a Professor in Archaeology at the University of Southampton.

I am an archaeologist with specialist interests in later prehistory, with a particular focus on the Neolithic of the British Isles and adjacent regions. Fieldwork has always been an important part of my research, and I have been fortunate to work in some iconic landscapes, including those of the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site, alongside brilliant and inspirational colleagues. Framing this work are general interests in monumentality among trans-egalitarian societies, material practices, and cultural perceptions of the environment. It’s a great time to be working in archaeology, and the breadth, innovation and global contribution of the subject continues to fuel my passion.

I am currently UK editor of the Journal of Social Archaeology and co-editor of the Manchester University Press ‘Social Archaeology and Material Worlds’ series.

Other University of Southampton sites

Research interests

My research has taken in themes relating to monumentality, depositional practices and materiality, cultural perceptions of the environment, and approaches to the study of settlement and routine. These have been articulated through a focus on British later prehistory, and especially the Neolithic. Over the last 20 years I have been involved - in collaboration with colleagues in the UCL and the Universities of Bournemouth, Manchester and UHI - in major fieldwork projects investigating the great monument complexes of Avebury (the AHRC-funded ‘Living with Monuments Project’ and ‘Longstones Project’) and Stonehenge (the ‘Stones of Stonehenge’ and AHRC-funded ‘Stonehenge Riverside Project’).

I have also researched and published on other topics, including the archaeology of contact on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and the links between contemporary art and archaeology.

PhD Supervision

I am interested in supervising postgraduate students (MPhil and PhD) researching topics related to: British later prehistory (Neolithic to Iron Age), depositional practices and the formation of the archaeological record, landscape archaeology, and approaches to material culture that bridge archaeology and anthropology.

Research group

Southampton Ceramics Research Group

Affiliate research groups

ASARGH: Avebury and Stonehenge Archaeological and Historical Research Group, Prehistoric Landscapes, Monuments and Materialities

Research project(s)

Stones of Stonehenge

The Stones of Stonehenge Project is a collaboration between researchers from Southampton and UCL (Mike Parker Pearson - Project PI), the National Museum of Wales (Richard Bevins), the Universities of Leicester (Mark Gillings, Rob Ixer), Manchester (Colin Richards), Bournemouth (Kate Welham), and Sheffield (Roger Doonan), and the Dyfed Archaeological Trust (Duncan Schlee).  It aims to explore the various reasons for bringing stones from Wales and from the Avebury area to Stonehenge; and to identify quarry sources and establish the likely routes along which the stones were brought.

Living with Monuments: life and cultural landscape between the 4th and 2nd millennia BC in the Avebury region, Wiltshire

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Articles

Books

Book Chapters

  • Pollard, J., Garwood, P., Parker Pearson, M., Richards, C., Thomas, J., & Welham, K. (2017). Remembered and imagined belongings: Stonehenge in the age of first metals. In P. Bickle, V. Cummings, D. Hofmann, & J. Pollard (Eds.), The Neolithic of Europe (pp. 279). Oxbow Books. http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-neolithic-of-europe.html
  • Pollard, J. (2016). Interpreting the archaeology of the Avebury landscape. In M. Leivers, & A. B. Powell (Eds.), A Research Framework for the Stonehenge, Avebury, and Associated Sites World Heritage Site. (pp. 72-76). (Wessex Archaeology Monograph; No. 38). Wessex Archaeology.
  • Cleal, R. J., Pollard, J., Snashall, N., Montague, R., & Ruggles, C. (2016). Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. In M. Leivers, & A. B. Powell (Eds.), A Research Framework for the Stonehenge, Avebury, and Associated Sites World Heritage Site (pp. 81-98). (Wessex Archaeology Monograph; No. 38). Wessex Archaeology.
  • Pollard, J. (2016). Post-Medieval (AD 1500–1950). In M. Leivers, & A. B. Powell (Eds.), A Research Framework for the Stonehenge, Avebury, and Associated Sites World Heritage Site (pp. 119-126). (Wessex Archaeology Monograph; No. 38). Wessex Archaeology.
  • Pollard, J. (2015). A community of beings: animals and people in the Neolithic of southern Britain. In D. Serjeantson, & D. Field (Eds.), Animals in the Neolithic of Britain and Europe (pp. 135-148). (Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers; No. 7). Oxbow Books.
  • Pollard, J., & Marciniak, A. (2015). Animals and social relations. In C. Fowler, J. Harding, & D. Hofmann (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe (pp. 745-759). Oxford University Press.
  • Gillings, M., & Pollard, J. (2015). Authenticity, artifice and the Druidical temple of Avebury. In J. Kolen, R. Hermans, & H. Renes (Eds.), Landscape Biographies: Geographical, Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on the Production and Transmission of Landscapes (pp. 117-142). (Landscape and Heritage Studies). Amsterdam University Press.
  • Pollard, J. (2014). The Sarsen stone. In J. Leary, D. Field, & G. Campbell (Eds.), Silbury Hill: The Largest Prehistoric Mound in Europe (pp. 75-80). English Heritage.
  • Pollard, J. (2013). From Ahu to Avebury: monumentality, the social, and relational ontologies. In B. Alberti, A. M. Jones, & J. Pollard (Eds.), Archaeology After Interpretation: Returning Materials to Archaeological Theory (pp. 177-196). Left Coast Press.
  • Pollard, J., & Hicks, D. (2013). Later prehistoric and Roman Europe. In D. Hicks, & A. Stevenson (Eds.), World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: A Characterization (pp. 240-261). Archaeopress.
  • Harding, J., & Pollard, J. (2013). Oval enclosure. In J. Harding (Ed.), Cult, Religion, and Pilgrimage: Archaeological Investigations at the Neolithic and Bronze Age Monument Complex of Thornborough, North Yorkshire (pp. 82-84). (CBA Research Report; No. 174). Council for British Archaeology.
  • Parker Pearson, M., Marshall, P., Pollard, J., Richards, C., Thomas, J., & Welham, K. (2013). Stonehenge. In H. Fokkens, & A. Harding (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age (pp. 159-178). Oxford University Press.
  • Richards, C., Downes, J., Ixer, R., Hambleton, E., Peterson, R., & Pollard, J. (2013). Surface over substance: the Vestra Fiold horned cairn, Mainland, Setter cairn, Eday, and a reappraisal of late Neolithic funerary architecture. In C. Richards (Ed.), Building the Great Stone Circles of the North (pp. 149-183). Windgather Press.
  • Pollard, J. (2012). Worked flint. In M. Parker Pearson (Ed.), From Machir to Mountains: Archaeological Survey And Excavation in South Uist (pp. 207). Oxbow Books.
  • Parker Pearson, M., Pollard, J., Richards, C., Thomas, J., Welham, K., Albarella, U., Chan, B., Marshall, P., & Viner, S. (2011). Feeding Stonehenge: feasting in late Neolithic Britain. In G. Aranda Jiménez, S. Montón-Subias, & M. Sánchez Romero (Eds.), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner: Feasting Rituals in the Prehistoric Societies of Europe and the Near East (pp. 73-90). Oxbow Books.
  • Parker Pearson, M., Pollard, J., Richards, C., Thomas, J., Tilley, C., & Welham, K. (2011). Stonehenge and early Bronze Age cosmology. In H. Meller, & F. Bertemes (Eds.), Der Griff nach den Sternen: Wie Europas Eliten zu Macht und Reichtum kamen (pp. 397-416). Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt/Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte.
  • Pollard, J. (2011). Stonehenge, Avebury and the phenomenon of the megalithic. In J. Schofield, J. Carmen, & P. Belford (Eds.), Archaeological Practice and Heritage in Great Britain: A Heritage Handbook (pp. 50-52). Springer.
  • Joyce, R., & Pollard, J. (2010). Archaeological assemblages and practices of deposition. In D. Hicks, & M. C. Beaudry (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture (pp. 291-309). (Oxford Handbooks in Archaeology). Oxford University Press.
  • Pollard, J., & Gillings, M. (2010). Sarsen stories. In H. Lewis, & S. Semple (Eds.), Perspectives in Landscape Archaeology: Papers Presented at Oxford 2003-5 (pp. 7-11). British Archaeological Reports.
  • Pollard, J. (2010). The sounds of Stonehenge: some notes on an acoustic archaeology. In S. Banfield (Ed.), The Sounds of Stonehenge (pp. 1-3). (British Archaeological Reports; No. 504). Archaeopress / British Archaeological Reports.
  • Gillings, M., & Pollard, J. (2009). Breaking megaliths. In J. Parker (Ed.), Written on Stone: The Cultural Reception of British Prehistoric Monuments (pp. 36-48). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • Pollard, J. (2008). Archaeological excavation in the World Heritage Site. In S. Simmonds (Ed.), Avebury World Heritage Site: Values and Voices (pp. 10-12). Kennet District Council.
  • Pollard, J., & Healy, F. (2008). Neolithic and earlier Bronze Age. In C. Webster (Ed.), The Archaeology of South West England. South West Archaeological Research Framework: resource assessment and research agenda (pp. 75-102). Somerset County Council.
  • Pollard, J. (2008). The construction of prehistoric Britain. In J. Pollard (Ed.), Prehistoric Britain (pp. 1-17). (Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology). Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Pollard, J., & Robinson, D. (2007). A return to Woodhenge: the results and implications of the 2006 excavations. In M. Larsson, & M. Parker Pearson (Eds.), From Stonehenge to the Baltic: Living with Cultural Diversity in the Third Millennium BC (pp. 159-168). (British Archaeological Reports International Series; No. S1692). Archaeopress.
  • Beadsmore, E., Conneller, C., Edmonds, M., & Pollard, J. (2007). Flaked stone. In A. Cooper, & M. Edmonds (Eds.), Past and Present: Excavations at Broom, Bedfordshire 1996-2005 (pp. 219-232). Oxbow Books.
  • Pollard, J. (2006). Pottery. In C. Evans, & I. Hodder (Eds.), The Haddenham Project: Woodland Archaeology v. 1: Neolithic Sites at Haddenham (pp. 221-221). (McDonald Institute Monographs). McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
  • Pollard, J., & Johnston, R. (2006). Prehistoric pottery. In C. Evans, & I. Hodder (Eds.), The Haddenham Project: Woodland Archaeology v.1: Neolithic sites at Haddenham (pp. 61-63). (McDonald Institute Monographs). McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research.
  • Pollard, J. (2006). The pottery. In C. Evans, & I. Hodder (Eds.), The Haddenham Project: Marshland Communities and Cultural Landscape - From the Bronze Age to the Present Day v. 2 (pp. 46-48). McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
  • Pollard, J. (2006). The pottery. In C. Evans, & I. Hodder (Eds.), The Haddenham Project: Marshland Communities and Cultural Landscape - From the Bronze Age to the Present Day v. 2 (pp. 62-64). McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
  • Pollard, J. (2006). The Pottery. In C. Evans, & I. Hodder (Eds.), The Haddenham Project: Marshland Communities and Cultural Landscape - From the Bronze Age to the Present Day v. 2 (pp. 35-35). McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
  • Pollard, J. (2006). Wooden pin fragments. In C. Evans, & I. Hodder (Eds.), The Haddenham Project: Woodland Archaeology v. 1: Neolithic Sites at Haddenham (pp. 171-172). (McDonald Institute Monographs). McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
  • Pollard, J. (2006). Worked bone objects. In C. Evans, & I. Hodder (Eds.), The Haddenham Project: Woodland Archaeology v. 1: Neolithic Sites at Haddenham (pp. 307-309). (McDonald Institute Monographs). McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
  • Pollard, J. (2005). Memory, monuments and middens in the Neolithic landscape. In G. Brown, D. Field, & D. McOmish (Eds.), The Avebury Landscape: Aspects of the Field Archaeology of the Marlborough Downs (pp. 103-114). Oxbow Books.
  • Pollard, J. (2005). The Neolithic. In P. Morgan (Ed.), The Tempus History of Wales, 25,000 B.C. – A.D. 2000 (pp. 16-25). Tempus/The National Library of Wales.
  • Pollard, J. (2004). A ‘movement of becoming’: realms of existence in the early Neolithic of southern Britain. In A. Chadwick (Ed.), Stories from the Landscape: Archaeologies of Inhabitation (pp. 55-69). (British Archaeological Reports International Series; No. S1238). Archaeopress.
  • Pollard, J., & Cleal, R. (2004). Dating Avebury. In J. Pollard, & R. Cleal (Eds.), Monuments and Material Culture. Papers in honour of an Avebury archaeologist: Isobel Smith (pp. 120-129). Hobnob Press.
  • Pollard, J. (2004). The art of decay and the transformation of substance. In C. Renfrew, C. Gosden, & E. DeMarrais (Eds.), Substance, Memory, Display: Archaeology and Art (pp. 47-62). McDonald Institute.
  • Pollard, J., Gillings, M., & Peterson, R. (2004). The destruction of the Avebury Monuments. In R. Cleal, & J. Pollard (Eds.), Monuments and Material Culture. Papers in honour of an Avebury archaeologist: Isobel Smith (pp. 139-163). Hobnob Press.
  • Pollard, J., & Howell, R. (2004). The Iron Age: settlement and material culture. In R. Howell, & M. J. Aldhouse-Green (Eds.), Gwent County History: Gwent in Prehistory and Early Hstory (pp. 140-159). (Gwent County History; No. 1). University of Wales Press.
  • Pollard, J., & Peterson, R. (2004). The Neolithic: the first farming societies. In M. J. Aldhouse-Green, & R. Howell (Eds.), Gwent County History: Gwent in prehistory and early history (pp. 56-83). (Gwent County History; No. 1). University of Wales Press.
  • Pollard, J. (2003). WANHS and archaeological research in Wiltshire, 1853-2003. In J. Thomas (Ed.), Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society: The First 150 Years (pp. 183-205). Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society.
  • Pollard, J. (2002). The nature of archaeological deposits and finds assemblages. In A. Woodward, & J. D. Hill (Eds.), Prehistoric Britain: The Ceramic Basis (pp. 22-33). (Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group Occasional Publication; No. 3). Oxbow Books.
  • Pollard, J., Hall, D., & Lucas, G. (2001). Excavation of a Medieval Saltern at Parson Drove, Cambridgeshire. In T. Lane, & E. L. Morris (Eds.), A Millennium of Saltmaking: Prehistoric and Romano-British Salt Production in the Fenland (pp. 426-455). (Lincolnshire archaeology and heritage report series). Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire.
  • Evans, C., & Pollard, J. (2001). The dating of the Storey’s Bar Road fields reconsidered. In F. Pryor, D. M. Jones, & M. W. Ponsford (Eds.), The Flag Fen Basin: Archaeology and environment of a Fenland landscape (pp. 25-26). English Heritage.
  • Pollard, J. (2000). Neolithic occupation practices and social ecologies from Rinyo to Clacton. In A. Ritchie (Ed.), Neolithic Orkney in its European Context (McDonald Institute Monographs). McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
  • Pollard, J. (2000). The Neolithic. In T. Kirby, & S. Oosthuizen (Eds.), An Atlas of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire History Centre for Regional Studies, Anglia Polytechnic University.
  • Pollard, J. (1999). "These places have their moments": thoughts on settlement practices in the British Neolithic. In J. Brück, & M. Goodman (Eds.), Making Places in the Prehistoric World: Themes in Settlement Archaeology (pp. 76-93). UCL Press.
  • Whittle, A., & Pollard, J. (1998). Windmill Hill causewayed enclosure: the harmony of symbols. In M. Edmonds, & C. Richards (Eds.), Understanding the Neolithic of North-Western Europe (pp. 231-247). Cruithne Press.

Conferences

  • Pollard, J. (2021). Cosmological power and celestial referents in Neolithic Wessex. In H. Meller, A. Reichenberger, & R. Risch (Eds.), Zeit ist Macht. Wer macht Zeit?: 13. Mitteldeutscher Archaologentag 2020 (Vol. 24, pp. 79-88). (Tagungen des Landesmuseums fur Vorgeschichte Halle). Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt/Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte.
  • Pollard, J. (2012). Living with sacred spaces: the henge monuments of Wessex. In A. Gibson (Ed.), Enclosing the Neolithic: Recent Studies in Britain and Europe (pp. 93-107). (British Archaeological Reports, International Series; No. 2440). Archaeopress.
  • Cleal, R., & Pollard, J. (2012). The Revenge of the Native: monuments, material culture, burial and other practices in the third quarter of the 3rd millennium BC in Wessex. In M. J. Allen, J. Gardiner, & A. Sheridan (Eds.), Is There a British Chalcolithic? People, Place and Polity in the late 3rd Millennium BC (pp. 317-332). (Prehistoric Society Research Papers; No. 4). Oxbow Books / Prehistoric Society.
  • Parker Pearson, M., Pollard, J., Richards, C., Thomas, J., Welham, K., Bevins, R., Ixer, R., Marshall, P., & Chamberlain, A. (2011). Stonehenge: controversies of the bluestones. In L. Garcia Sanjuan, C. Scarre, & D. W. Wheatley (Eds.), Exploring Time and Matter in Prehistoric Monuments: Absolute Chronology and Rare Rocks in European Megaliths. Proceedings of the 2nd European Megalithic Studies Group Meeting (pp. 219-250). (Menga: Journal of Andalusian Prehistory; No. Monograph no. 1.). Junta de Andalucia.
  • Pollard, J. (2011). The Neolithic: 50 years work on nearly two millennia. In R. Whimster (Ed.), The New Antiquarians: 50 Years of Archaeological Innovation in Wessex (pp. 38-49). (CBA Research Rports). Council for British Archaeology.
  • Pollard, J., & Gillings, M. (2009). The world of the Grey Wethers. In B. O'Connor, G. Cooney, & J. Chapman (Eds.), Materialitas: Working Stone, Carving Identity (pp. 29-41). (Prehistoric Society Research Papers). Prehistoric Society/Oxbow Books.
  • Pollard, J. (2008). Deposition and material agency in the Early Neolithic of southern Britain. In B. J. Mills, & W. H. Walker (Eds.), Memory Work: Archaeologies of Material Practices (pp. 41-59). (School for Advanced Research Advanced Seminar Series). School for Advanced Research.

I teach across a range of undergraduate and Masters modules, on topics relating to prehistory, material culture, professional practice and archaeological interpretation and presentation.

Dr Joshua Pollard
Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Southampton
Avenue Campus, Highfield
Southampton
SO17 1BF
United Kingdom

Room Number NNN: 65A/3039

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