Rate My Professor Stephanie Wynne-Jones

Professor Stephanie Wynne-Jones is Professor of African Archaeology and Head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. She earned a BA (Hons) in Archaeology from the University of Bristol (1995–1998), an MPhil in African Archaeology from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge in 2005, with a thesis on urbanisation at Kilwa, Tanzania, AD 800–1400. Her career includes serving as Assistant Director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa from 2005 to 2008, where she remains a Trustee and Member of the Governing Council. She joined the University of York as a faculty member, progressing through Lecturer and Senior Lecturer roles to her current professorship. Wynne-Jones holds an Honorary Research Fellowship at the University of South Africa and is President of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists since 2025. She serves as General Editor of the British Institute in Eastern Africa Memoir series and on editorial boards including Azania, the Routledge African Archaeology and Cultural Heritage series, and Internet Archaeology.

An archaeologist specializing in African archaeology, Wynne-Jones explores links between people, landscapes, history, and material culture, with a focus on urbanism, daily life, and object interactions on the medieval Swahili coast and beyond. Her research projects include excavations at Songo Mnara (Kilwa archipelago), Vumba Kuu (Kenya), Mafia Island, Ujiji (Lake Tanganyika), and Zanzibar; the Songo Mnara Urban Landscape Project (2009–2017, funded by NSF and AHRC); Urban Ecology and Transitions in the Zanzibar Archipelago (Leverhulme Trust, 2019–2022); MAEASAM (Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments); and an ERC Advanced Grant project on the Zambezi Valley in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Key publications include A Material Culture: Consumption and Materiality on the Precolonial East African Coast (Oxford University Press, 2016); editor (with Adria LaViolette) of The Swahili World (Routledge, 2018, winner of the SAfA Book Prize); 'The public life of the Swahili stonehouse, 14th–15th centuries AD' (Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2013); and 'Coins in Context: Local Economy, Value and Practice on the East African Swahili Coast' (with Jeffrey Fleisher, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2012). Awards include Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries of London (2016) and Pro Futura Scientia Fellowship at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (2015–2017). She contributes to community archaeology through initiatives like a Swahili children's book on Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara used in Tanzanian schools.