Richard J. Harrison

Richard J. Harrison (b. August 1949) is an archaeologist and Professor in the University of Bristol, England. Harrison studied at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and gained his Bachelor’s degree in Archaeology and Anthropology from the University of Cambridge in 1970. He held a Prize Fellowship at Harvard from 1970-1975, and was awarded his PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University in 1975. His first employment was in the Department of Prehistoric and Roman-British Antiquites at the British Museum, from where he moved to the University of Bristol as a Lecturer in 1976. In 1977 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and in 2003 to be a Corresponding Fellow of the Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut in Frankfurt, Germany.

Richard Harrison is widely known for his work on the Copper and Bronze Ages of Europe, his special interest being in the reasons how and why ancient societies changed in the manner they did. He has conducted twenty years of excavations in Spain, since 1979 digging the remains of four Bronze Age villages (dated 2600-1000 BC) in the region of Aragón. This work has shown how farming societies in that region developed into established communities with a diversity of livestock and crops. A further particular economic specialisation there was in the intensive hunting of mammals for their pelts and skins, in particular the highly patterned skins of infantile red deer. These decorative skins were important items in Bronze Age trade, commodities normally invisible among the inventory of archaeological finds.

Harrison's excavations were attended by volunteers from many British and America universities, and in particular by many from the 'Earthwatch' programme, who made an important contribution to his work. Since his early days at the British Museum, Richard Harrison maintained an interest in promoting prehistory to the wider public, both within Britain and during his work in Spain.

elected publications

*2007 -- co-author V. Heyd. The Transformation of Europe in the 3rd Millennium BC "Prähistorische Zeitschrift" (Berlin) 82/2, pp.129-214.
*2007 -- Majaladares (Spain). "A Bronze Age Village of Farmers, Hunters and Herders".ISSN 0939-0561X; ISBN-13 978-3-89646-379-1
*2004 -- "Symbols and Warriors: Images of the European Bronze Age".ISBN 09535418-7-8
*1998 -- (co-authors M. T. Andrés Rupérez and G. Moreno López.) " Un Poblado de la Edad del Bronce en El Castillo (Frías de Albarracín, Teruel)." ISBN 0-86054-889-9
*1996 -- (co-authors G. Moreno López and Anthony Legge). "Moncín;Un Poblado de la Edad del Bronce (Borja, Zaragoza)." Zaragoza; Ministerio de Cultura. ISBN 84-7753-468-3
*1988 -- "Spain at the Dawn of History: Iberians, Phoenicians and Greeks" Thames and Hudson Ltd., London.
*1980 -- "The Beaker Folk: Copper Age Archaeology in Western Europe" Thames and Hudson Ltd, London.
*1977 -- The Bell Beaker Cultures of Spain and Portugal.American School of Prehistoric Research, Bulletin No. 35, Peabody Museum, Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.).ISBN 0-87365-535-4