Ian W. N. Jones is Clinical Assistant Professor of Liberal Studies. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California San Diego and B.A.s in Anthropology and English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Jones is an archaeologist whose work focuses on political economy and human-environment interactions, especially extractive and agricultural economies, in the 1st and 2nd millennium AD Eastern Mediterranean. He is currently writing a book on the 13th century AD copper industry in the Faynan region of southern Jordan and its connection to the Levantine sugar industry. In his role as Field Director of the Islamic Village Excavations of the Balu‘a Regional Archaeology Project, he investigates shifting patterns of settlement, agriculture, and movement at Khirbat al-Balu‘a, an archaeological site on the northern Karak Plateau in central Jordan. His work has been published in Levant, Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, the Bulletin of ASOR, and the Journal of Archaeological Science, as well as books published by Springer, Cambridge University Press, the University of Pennsylvania Press, and others. In his teaching, he is especially interested in the potential of history and archaeology to inform modern understandings of the environment and inspire solutions to the current climate crisis.
Prior to his current appointment, he was a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California San Diego and held a postdoctoral fellowship in the curation of archaeological collections at the La Sierra University Center for Near Eastern Archaeology.