Neil Price (archaeologist)

Summary

Neil Stuppel Price is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of Viking Age-Scandinavia and the archaeology of shamanism. He is currently a professor in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Neil Stuppel Price
Born1965 (age 58–59)
Alma materUCL Institute of Archaeology (BA)
Uppsala University (PhD)
Known forThe Viking Way (book)
Scientific career
FieldsArchaeology (especially the Viking Age)
ThesisThe Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (2002)
Websitewww.arkeologi.uu.se/Research/Presentations/neil-price/

Born in south-west London, Price went on to gain a BA in Archaeology at the University of London, before writing his first book, The Vikings in Brittany, which was published in 1989. He undertook his doctoral research from 1988 through to 1992 at the University of York, before moving to Sweden, where he completed his PhD at the University of Uppsala in 2002. In 2001, he edited an anthology entitled The Archaeology of Shamanism for Routledge, and the following year published and defended his doctoral thesis, The Viking Way. The Viking Way would be critically appraised as one of the most important studies of the Viking Age and pre-Christian religion by other archaeologists like Matthew Townend and Martin Carver.[1] In 2017 Price was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (CorrFRSE).[2]

Biography edit

Price began his archaeological career in 1983, working for the Museum of London in excavating Roman and Medieval sites around the Greater London area.[3] He subsequently began studying for a BA in the subject in 1988, at the Institute of Archaeology, then a part of the University of London. It was here that he developed a particular interest in the Early Medieval period and the Viking Age, and undertook fieldwork in Britain, Germany, Malta and the Caribbean.[3]

Price started his doctoral research at the University of York's Department of Archaeology from October 1988 through to May 1992. Under the supervision of the archaeologists Steve Roskams and Richard Hall, Price had initially focused his research on the Anglo-Scandinavian tenements at 16–22 Coppergate in York, although eventually moved away from this to focus on archaeology within Scandinavia itself.[4] Personal circumstances meant that Price was unable to finish his doctoral thesis at York, and in 1992 he emigrated to Sweden, where he spent the following five years working as a field archaeologist. Despite his full-time employment, he continued to be engaged in archaeological research in a private capacity, publishing a series of academic papers and presenting others at conferences. In 1996 joined the Department of Archaeology at the University of Uppsala as a research scholar, beginning full-time work there the following year. At Uppsala, he went on to complete his doctoral thesis and gain his PhD under the supervision of Anne-Sofie Gräslund.[5]

Bibliography edit

Books edit

Title Year Publisher ISBN
The Vikings in Brittany 1989 Viking Society for Northern Research (London)
The Archaeology of Shamanism 2001 Routledge (London)
The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia 2002 Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University (Uppsala) 91-506-1626-9
The Viking Way: Religion and War in the Later Iron Age of Scandinavia, 2nd edition 2017 Oxbow Books (Oxford) 978-1-84217-260-5
The Vikings 2016 Routledge (London & New York) 978-0-41534-349-7
Odin's Whisper: Death and the Vikings 2016 Reaktion Books (London) 978-1-78023-290-4
Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings 2020 Basic Books (New York) 978-0-46509-698-5
The Vikings (Peoples of the Ancient World) 2023 Routledge (London & New York) 978-0415343503

Articles edit

  • Price, Neil & Mortimer, Paul (2004). "An Eye for Odin? Divine Role-Playing in the Age of Sutton Hoo". European Journal of Archaeology. 17 (3). European Association of Archaeologists: 517–538. doi:10.1179/1461957113Y.0000000050. S2CID 161907810.

References edit

Footnotes edit

  1. ^ Townend 2003 and Carver 2010. p. 1.
  2. ^ "RSE Welcomes 60 New Fellows" (Press release). Royal Society of Edinburgh. 15 February 2017. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
  3. ^ a b University of Aberdeen.
  4. ^ Price 2002. p. 13.
  5. ^ Price 2002. p. 14.

Bibliography edit

Academic sources
  • Carver, Martin (2010). "Agency, Intellect and the Archaeological Agenda". Signals of Belief in Early England: Anglo-Saxon Paganism Revisited. Oxford and Oakville: Oxbow Books. pp. 1–20. ISBN 978-1-84217-395-4.
  • Price, Neil (2002). The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Uppsala: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University. ISBN 91-506-1626-9.
  • Townend, Matthew (2003). "Review of The Viking Way". Antiquity. Vol. 16, no. 3.
Non-academic sources
  • "Professor Neil Price". University of Aberdeen. Archived from the original on 22 July 2013. Retrieved 7 February 2012.