I am a member of the Editorial Board for the Brepols series, Studies in the Early Middle Ages and have previously sat on the Editorial Board for the Journal Early Medieval Europe and served as Co-Editor for the Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph Series. I sit on the Research Committee for Oxford Archaeology, and have previously served as an academic advisor to the project steering the publication of the Staffordshire Hoard.
Gabor Thomas

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+44 (0) 118 378 5449
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Associate Professor
- Research Division Lead
- Archaeology Unit of Assessment Lead for Research Excellence Framework 2021
- Programme Director BA/BSc Archaeology
- Archaeology representative, Reading Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies (GCMS).
Areas of interest
- Early medieval rural settlements and landscapes
- Early medieval religion and monasticism
- Early medieval objects and identities, with a particular interest in ornamental metalwork and dress accessories
- Cultural interaction in Viking age Britain and Ireland.
Postgraduate supervision
Gabor currently supervises/co-supervises the following research projects:
- Three thousand years of Rubbish in the Thames: the long durée of object deposition from the Bronze Age to the medieval period (Clifford, AHRC SWW DTP studentship).
- Gender and religion in Early Medieval Wales: The Archaeology of religious transformation in Wales c. 400-1200 CE.
Previous student topics have included:
- Changing Social Relations and the Making of an Early Medieval Kingdom: People and Pottery in Anglo-Saxon Kent AD 450-850(Backhouse, AHRC SWW DTP studentship).
- A Zooarchaeological analysis of Anglo-Saxon Lyminge (Knapp).
- Centrality in Early England: the development of central places in early Anglo-Saxon England and their North-West European Parallels AD 499-700 (Austin, AHRC funded).
- The Sacred in the Secular: Investigating Anglo-Saxon Ritual Action and Belief Systems through a Holistic Study of Settlements and Cemeteries in the 7th-9th Centuries AD (Knox, AHRC funded).
- The Ecology of the Anglo-Saxon Conversion: A Multi-Proxy Geoarchaeology of the Anglo-Saxon Monastic Landscape of Lyminge, Kent (Maslin, AHRC funded).
- The Brooch in Context: Costume, Culture and Identity in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Weetch, Project Curator of Early Medieval Collections at the British Museum).
I am happy to discuss proposals for postgraduate research in areas concerned with the material culture, landscape and settlement archaeology of the early medieval period.
For more information, please contact gabor.thomas@reading.ac.uk.
Research centres and groups
Research projects
My research explores early medieval life through the archaeology of places, as revealed by ambitious field-based projects, and through the social and cultural meanings of objects. I have directed a series of large-scale research excavations exploring early medieval monastic and elite settlements and also have a long-standing interest in understanding how dress and personal adornment mediated cultural interaction between the peoples of Britain and neighbouring regions.
Cookham, Berkshire
I am currently directing research excavations on the site of an early medieval monastery on the River Thames at Cookham, that also serves as a Field School for the Department of Archaeology.Initiated in 2021, the excavations are revealing the nuances of a well preserved monastic landscape dating to the 8th and 9th centuries A.D., embracing a planned waterfront production zone and a monastic cemetery. Cookham is nested within a wider collaborative initiative, The Middle Thames Archaeology Partnership, of which I am a founding member and lead investigator, which aims to unlock the archaeological potential of this previously neglected stretch of the Thames through collaborative partnerships. Watch me being interviewed about the Cookham excavations here.
Lyminge, Kent
I led large-scale excavations at the documented early medieval royal centre and monastery of Lyminge, Kent, 2007-19 supported by a major grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/J006068/1). Currently undergoing analysis, the results are shedding fresh light on the detailed mechanics of kingdom formation and Christianisation in Kent and the wider North Sea world. Significant discoveries include one of the best preserved examples of a royal residence in pre-Viking England, a detailed view of domestic and industrial life from the outer precinct of an 8-9th-century monastery, and exceedingly rich artefactual and ecofactual assemblages, the analysis of which has sustained several funded PhD projects.
Several publications have emerged from the research, most recently an edited volume placing Lyminge in its international context: Early medieval monasticism in the North Sea Zone: proceedings of a conference held to celebrate the conclusion of the Lyminge excavations 2008-15, and an article in the journal Antiquity discussing the earliest example of a plough coulter from Anglo-Saxon England: Technology, ritual and Anglo-Saxon agrarian production: the biography of a seventh-century century plough coulter from Lyminge, Kent
The Lyminge Project has garnered widespread media attention over the years, featuring in TV programmes such as 'Digging for Britain'; radio broadcasts such as BBC Radio 4's 'Making History'; and in The Guardian.
Watch an AHRC film about the project here.
Comparative perspectives on early medieval rulers' residences
In 2015 I established a two-year academic network on the subject of early medieval rulers' residences directed in association with Dr Gordon Noble at the University of Aberdeen. Funded through the AHRC's Networking Scheme (AH/N000218/1), and engaging closely with early medieval specialists at the Universities of Oxford, Durham, and UCL, the project brought together leading scholars from different countries and disciplinary backgrounds to build comparative perspectives around a major influx of archaeological evidence for sites of royal residence across early medieval Britain.
Selected discussions and conclusions from the Network have been published in a special section of the Norwegian Archaeological Review.
Medieval religious transformations
I have been closely engaged with an international network seeking to advance comparative and theoretically-informed approaches to medieval religious transformation and belief, conceived in collaboration with Professor Roberta Gilchrist and Professor Aleks Pluskowski at the University of Reading. The network has involved partners at the Universities of Stockholm, Bologna, Granada, Tubingen, Budapest and Tartu and has published an agenda paper in the journal Medieval Archaeology, for which I was lead author: Religious transformations in the Middle Ages: towards a new archaeological agenda.
Personal adornment and early medieval identities
My interest in the early medieval period was initially nurtured through a fascination in the art and decorative ornament of the early medieval period, leading me to undertake doctoral research on late Anglo-Saxon and Viking-age dress accessories. Much of my research in this area has exploited data generated through the Portable Antiquities Scheme to explore processes of cultural interaction and identity formation, as, for example, my paper Carolingian culture in the North Sea world: rethinking the cultural dynamics of personal adornment in Viking age England. I have also researched and published important collections of early medieval metalwork derived from hoards and settlement excavations.
Academic qualifications
- BA, MA, PhD – University of London.
Professional bodies/affiliations
- Fellow of the Society of the Antiquaries of London
- Member of the Sachsensymposion.
Publications
- Thomas, G. (2023) In the shadow of saints: the long durée of Lyminge, Kent, as a sacred Christian landscape. Archaeologia , 112. Archaeologia , 112 pp 154. ISSN: 2051-3186 ISBN: 9780854313051 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.26530/20.500.12657/60888
- Thomas, G. , Scull, C. , Gleeson, P. (2021) Halls of mirrors: reflections on the social meanings of early medieval rulers’ residences. Norwegian Archaeological Review , 54 (1). pp. 75-79. ISSN: 1502-7678 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00293652.2021.1955413
- Thomas, G. and Scull, C. (2021) Practice, power and place: southern British perspectives on the agency of early medieval rulers’ residences. Norwegian Archaeological Review , 54 (1). ISSN: 1502-7678 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00293652.2021.1910337
- Scull, C. and Thomas, G. (2020) Early medieval great hall complexes in England: temporality and site biographies. Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History , 22 pp. 50-67. ISSN: 0264-5254
- Thomas, G. (2018) Mead-halls of the Oiscingas: a new Kentish perspective on the Anglo-Saxon great hall complex phenomenon. Medieval Archaeology , 62 (2). pp. 262-303. ISSN: 0076-6097 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00766097.2018.1535386
- Thomas, G. , Pluskowski, A. , Gilchrist, R. , Ruiz, G. , Andrén, A. , Augenti, A. , Astill, G. , Staecker, J. , Valk, H. (2017) Religious transformations in the Middle Ages: towards a new archaeological agenda. Medieval Archaeology , 61 (2). pp. 300-329. ISSN: 0076-6097 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00766097.2017.1374764
- Thomas, G. (2017) Introduction: early medieval monasticism in the North Sea zone: recent research and new perspectives. In: Thomas, G. and Knox, A. , (eds.) Early medieval monasticism in the North Sea Zone: proceedings of a conference held to celebrate the conclusion of the Lyminge excavations 2008-15. Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History , 20. Oxford University School of Archaeology , Oxford. pp. 1-4. ISBN: 9781905905393
- Thomas, G. (2017) Monasteries and places of power in pre-Viking England: trajectories, relationships and interactions. In: Thomas, G. and Knox, A. , (eds.) Early medieval monasticism in the North Sea Zone: proceedings of a conference held to celebrate the conclusion of the Lyminge excavations 2008-15. Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History , 20. Early Medieval Monasticism in the North Sea Zone. Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 20 , 20 pp. 97-116. ISSN: 0264 5254 ISBN: 9781905905393
- Thomas, G. and Knox, A. , eds. (2017) Early medieval monasticism in the North Sea Zone: proceedings of a conference held to celebrate the conclusion of the Lyminge excavations 2008-15. Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History , 20. Oxford University School of Archaeology , Oxford. pp 148. ISBN: 9781905905393
- Thomas, G. (2016) Downland, marsh, and weald: monastic foundation and rural intensification in Anglo-Saxon Kent. In: Flechner, R. and Máire, N. , (eds.) The Introduction of Christianity into the Early Medieval Insular World: Converting the Isles I. Studies in the Early Middle Ages Brepols , Turnhout. pp. 349-376. ISBN: 9782503554624 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.5.108730
- Thomas, G. , McDonnell, G. , Merkel, J. , Marshall, P. (2016) Technology, ritual and Anglo-Saxon agrarian production: the biography of a seventh-century century plough coulter from Lyminge, Kent. Antiquity , 90 (351). pp. 742-758. ISSN: 0003-598X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2016.73
- Knox, A. and Thomas, G. (2013) Excavating Anglo-Saxon Lyminge. In: Harrington, D. and Carr, J. , (eds.) Lyminge: A History. , Part Four. Lyminge Historical Society Publication , Lyminge.
- Thomas, G. (2013) Life before the minster: the social dynamics of monastic foundation at Anglo-Saxon Lyminge, Kent. Antiquaries Journal , 93 pp. 109-145. ISSN: 1758-5309 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003581513000206
- Thomas, G. (2013) A casket fit for a West Saxon courtier: the Plumpton Hoard and its place in the minor arts of Late Anglo-Saxon England.. In: Reynolds, A. and Webster, L. , (eds.) Early Medieval Art and Archaeology in the Northern World: Studies in Honour of James Graham-Campbell. The Northern world Brill (58). , Leiden. pp. 425-458. ISBN: 9789004235038
- Thomas, G. and Knox, A. (2012) A window on Christianisation: transformation at Anglo-Saxon Lyminge, Kent, England. Antiquity Bulletin , 86 (334). ISSN: 0003-598X
- Thomas, G. (2012) Carolingian culture in the North Sea world: rethinking the cultural dynamics of personal adornment in Viking age England. European Journal of Archaeology , 15 (3). pp. 486-518. ISSN: 1741-2722 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1461957112Y.0000000018
- Thomas, G. (2012) The prehistory of medieval farms and villages. In: Christie, N. and Stamper, P. , (eds.) Medieval Rural Settlement: Britain and Ireland, AD 800-1600. Windgather Press , Macclesfield. pp. 43-62. ISBN: 9781905119424
- Thomas, G. (2011) Overview: craft production and technology. In: Hamerow, H. , Hinton, D. , Crawford, S. , (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology. Oxford University Press pp. 405-422. ISBN: 9780199212149
- Thomas, G. (2010) The later Anglo-Saxon settlement at Bishopstone. A downland manor in the making. Research Report Council for British Archaeology (RR163). , York. pp 280. ISBN: 9781902771830
- Thomas, G. (2009) The strap-ends and hooked-tags. In: Evans, D. and Loveluck, C. , (eds.) Life and Economy at Early Medieval Flixborough, c. AD 600-1000: The Artefact Evidence: Excavations at Flixborough. , 2. Oxbow Books , Oxford. pp 534. ISBN: 9781842173107
- Thomas, G. (2009) The symbolic lives of Late Anglo-Saxon settlements: A timber structure and iron hoard from Bishopstone, East Sussex. The Archaeological Journal , 165 pp. 334-398. (2008)
- Thomas, G. , Payne, N. , Okasha, O. (2008) Re-evaluating base-metal artefacts: an inscribed lead strap-end from Crewkerne, Somerset. Anglo-Saxon England , 37 pp. 173-181. ISSN: 0263-6751 | doi: DOI:10.1017/S0263675109990196