Brian Boyd

Brian Boyd is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology and Director of the Museum Anthropology M.A. Program. He is Co-Director of the Center for Palestine Studies, and Co-Chair of the University Seminar on Human-Animal Studies. He works on the prehistory and politics of archaeology in southwest Asia, with a focus on Palestine. He is particularly involved in debates surrounding the colonial construction of archaeological narratives relating to the origins of agriculture and domestication. Brian also writes on critical human-animal studies, and sound studies. His current fieldwork takes place in the Palestinian Territories, where he co-directs a community archaeology/museum project (partially funded by the Columbia University Global Innovation Fund) in and around the village of Shuqba, near Ramallah. This project involves collaboration with Birzeit University faculty and students, and the local community, and aims to produce a deep history of the village and its landscapes, and the establishment of a village museum. The overall aim of the project is to contribute to the creation of sustainable cultural heritage and tourism-related collaborations between local communities, the Palestinian diaspora, and local, regional and international institutions. Brian co-directed the Anthropology Division of the New York Academy of Sciences (2013-2017), and he currently serves on the board of the Palestinian American Research Center, and the Theoretical Archaeology Group UK National Committee. He was awarded a Columbia University Division of Social Science Award for Excellence and Commitment to Teaching in 2024.

Recent representative publications include: “Human-animal relations and archaeology: thinking through anthropocentrism” (Annual Review of Anthropology, 2017); “Palestine, prehistory and the ‘origins of agriculture’” (Jerusalem Quarterly, 2023); “Like Us/Not Like Us: critical theory, anthropology and the Neanderthal dilemma”. (In: Alterity and Human Evolution, 2024).