Nicholas J. Saunders[1] is a British academic
archaeologist and
anthropologist. He was educated at the universities of
Sheffield (BA Archaeology, 1979),
Cambridge (MPhil Social Anthropology, 1981), and
Southampton (PhD Archaeology, 1991). He has held teaching and research positions at the
National Autonomous University of Mexico, the
University of the West Indies, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C., and at
University College London, where he was Reader in Material Culture, and undertook a major
British Academy sponsored investigation into the material culture anthropology of the First World War (1998–2004). As of 2014[update] Saunders was Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the
University of Bristol, where he was responsible for the
MA programmes in
historical archaeology and
conflict archaeology. As of 2018, he is Emeritus Professor of Material Culture in that department. He is a prominent contributor to the nascent field of
conflict archaeology, and has authored and edited numerous academic publications in the field. In addition to his research specialising in the anthropology of 20th-century conflicts and the
archaeology of World War I theatres in
Belgium,
France and the
Middle East, Saunders has also conducted extensive fieldwork and research in
pre-Columbian and historical archaeology of
the Americas. He has been involved with major museum exhibitions in London, Ypres (Belgium), Tübingen (Germany), and at the
Centre Pompidou-Metz (France). Saunders has investigated and published on
material cultures and landscapes of
Mesoamerica, South America, and the
Caribbean. His most recent research has been on the aesthetics of brilliance and colour in indigenous Amerindian symbolism, an extensive survey investigation of the
Nazca Lines in Peru, the anthropological archaeology of twentieth-century conflict (especially the First World War) and its legacies along the
Soca (Isonzo) Front on the Slovenian-Italian border, and the conflict artworks of the Chinese Labour Corps on the Western Front during and after the First World War.
Major book publications
Curating the Great War, (ed.) (with P. Cornish) 2022: London: Routledge.
Feuilles de Poilus: Decorated leaves from the First World War, (with D. Dendooven and Luc Volatier) 2022: Ieper: In Flanders Fields Museum.
Conflict Landscapes: Materiality and Meaning in Contested Places, (ed.) (with P. Cornish) 2021. London: Routledge.
Bodies in Conflict: Corporeality, Materiality and Transformation, (ed.) (with P. Cornish) 2014. London: Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315851846
Forged in conflict:
Francis Buckley, the First World War, and British Prehistory. 2020. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 7 Nov 2020 online, with S. Griffiths.
[2]
Zeitgeist archaeology: conflict, identity and ideology at Prague Castle, 1918–2018. 2019. Antiquity 93 (370):1009-1025.
https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.107
Traces of being: Interdisciplinary perspectives on First World War Conflict Landscapes. 2018. In, S.Daly, M.Salvante and V. Wilcox (eds.), Landscapes of the First World War, pp 209–224.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89411-9_12
Pearl's Treasure:The Trench Art Collection of an Australian Sapper. 2018. In, L. Slade (ed.), Sappers and Shrapnel:Contemporary Art and the Art of the Trenches, pp 13–27. Adelaide:Art Gallery of South Australia.
Trench Art: Objects and people in conflict. In, J. Bourke (ed.), War and Art: A Visual History of Modern Conflict, 2017, pp 209–215. London: Reaktion.
Materiality, space and distance in the First World War. In, N.J.Saunders and P. Cornish (eds.), Modern Conflict and the Senses, 2017, pp 29–42. London: Routledge.
Bodies in trees: a matter of being in Great War landscapes. In, P. Cornish and N.J. Saunders (eds.), Bodies in Conflict: Corporeality, Materiality and Transformation, 2014, 22–38. London: Routledge.
Travail et nostalgie sur le front de l’Ouest : l’Art des tranchées chinois et la Première guerre mondiale. In, Li Ma (ed.), Les travailleurs chinois en France dans la Première Guerre mondiale, 2012, pp 435–451. Paris: CNRS.
Fire on the Desert: Conflict Archaeology and the Great Arab Revolt in Southern Jordan 1916–1918. (with N. Faulkner). Antiquity 2010, Vol 84 (324), pp 514–527.
[3]
People in objects: Individuality and the quotidian in the material culture of war. In, C. White (ed.), The Materiality of Individuality 2009, pp 37–55. New York: Springer.
The Cosmic Earth: Materiality and Mineralogy in the Americas. In N. Boivin and M.A. Owoc (eds.), Soil, Stones and Symbols: Cultural Perceptions of the Mineral World 2004, pp 123–141. London: UCL Press.
'Catching the light': Technologies of power and enchantment in Pre-Columbian goldworking. In, J. Quilter and J.W. Hoopes (eds.), Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia 2003, pp 15–47. Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks.
Matter and memory in the landscapes of conflict: The Western Front 1914–1999. In, B. Bender and M. Winer (eds.), Contested Landscapes: Movement, Exile and Place 2001, pp 37–53. Oxford: Berg.
[4]
Bodies of metal, shells of memory: 'Trench Art' and the Great War Re-cycled. Journal of Material Culture 2000, Vol 5 (1), pp 43–67.
Biographies of brilliance: Pearls, transformations of matter and being, c. AD 1492. World Archaeology 1999, Vol 31 (2)pp 243–57.
[5]
Stealers of light, traders in brilliance: Amerindian metaphysics in the mirror of conquest. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 1998, Vol 33 (1): 225–52.
Zemís, trees and symbolic landscapes: three Taíno carvings from Jamaica. (with D.Gray). Antiquity 1996, Vol 70, No.270, pp 801–812.
[6]