Professor Antony Brown FBA
- Fellow type
- International Fellow
- Year elected
- 2026
- Honours
- FBA
- Sections
- Archaeology
Summary
Antony (Tony) Brown’s PhD used floodplain geoarchaeology and palaeoecology to reveal the artefactual nature of UK floodplains. After his PhD he was appointed soils lecturer at the University of Leicester and a joint lecturer in Archaeology and Geography. In 1997 he moved to the University of Exeter where he ran the Masters degree in Wetland Archaeology and was a co-founder of the 'Journal of Wetland Archaeology'.
In 2007 he moved back to the University of Southampton to head the Palaeoenvironmental Laboratory in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences. Here he developed research into the use of sedimentary ancient DNA in environmental archaeology and in 2019 was appointed to a professorship at Tromsø University Museum in Norway where he is one of the Directors of the ArcECoGEN Aurora Research Centre.
In 1997 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and in a Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 2000. He has supervised over 30 PhD students, 20 postdoctoral researchers and held multiple research grants from AHRC, NERC, ERC and Leverhulme Trust, and sat on AHRC Grant and Training Committees.
He has published over 250 refereed papers and several books, including 'Alluvial Geoarchaeology' (CUP, 1997). His research has always focussed on integrating environmental archaeology with both the humanities and the sciences.
In addition, as a palynologist Tony Brown has been one of the developers of forensic palynology, and worked on several high-profile cases including the Severs, and Neave cases, and has received several Chief-Constables letters of commendation. In 1997-2003 he was partially seconded to UN-ICTY Bosnian Exhumation Team. He has published paper in this area and was a member of the Forensic Science Advisory Group (FSAG). He has appeared in several TV and Radio programmes on this work including BBC ‘Expert Witness’ Series.