Julian D Richards
Professor of Archaeology
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Profile
Biography
Prof. Julian D Richards is a leading proponent of digital methods in archaeology, and a researcher in Viking archaeology. He founded the Archaeology Data Service in 1996, and co-founded the ejournal Internet Archaeology. Since 2024 he has also been Director of the new Heritage Science Data Service. He was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours 2024 for Services to Heritage and Digital Archiving.
Julian grew up in Sheffield and was part of the first cohort to attend a comprehensive secondary school, and the first member of his family to go to university. He first came to York to as a student excavator on the Coppergate Viking Dig in 1977. His direct involvement in archaeological computing began in 1980 when he enrolled for a PhD at the Research Centre for Computer Archaeology at what was then North Staffordshire Polytechnic, studying pre-Christian burial rites using the computing power of an ICL mainframe and an early Z80 micro-computer. In 1985 he co-authored Data Processing in Archaeology, the first textbook in archaeological computing, and he has subsequently written numerous papers and edited several books on the applications of computers in archaeology.
After a brief spell at the University of Leeds Julian returned to York in 1986 to lecture on Anglo-Saxon and Viking archaeology and introduced students and staff to archaeological computing via a modem link to the campus mainframe computer. He was part of the team that created the first University of York website.
In his period-based research Julian focusses on Viking Age England, publishing Viking Age England, and a Very Short Introduction to Vikings. For the last decade he has collaborated with Professor Dawn Hadley to investigate the Viking Great Army of the late 9th century. They have led fieldwork at the winter camp at Torksey (Lincs), and they have recently published two books: The Viking Great Army and the Making of England, and Life in the Viking Great Army: Raiders, Traders and Settlers.
Departmental roles
Julian was Head of Department from 2006-12 and remains a member of the Departmental Management Team. He was the founding Director of York's Centre for Digital Heritage from 2012-22, and from 2013-19 he was the founding Director of The White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH).
