Joseph Wilson

Joseph A.P. Wilson is a broadly trained archaeologist and religion scholar. He has earned a BS in Archaeology and Religion (Kent State University, 2000), an MA in Oriental and African Religions (University of London SOAS, 2002), an MS in Industrial Archaeology (Michigan Technological University, 2004), and a PhD in Anthropology, working in museum collections (University of Florida 2011).

His primary research is in Eurasian material culture, technology, and comparative religion. Under that broad umbrella, his work addresses the origins of warfare and the relationship between small-scale foraging economies and large urban empires in the ancient world. His work also addresses problems in comparative mythology, iconography, and the emergence of religious movements during later antiquity.

He held a previous career as a human DNA technologist.

He is a co-editor (with Mark C.E. Peterson) of the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, published by Equinox Press.

Select Publications

“‘Mother Earth’ is an Ancient Meme in the Global North” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture 18.2 (2024), 204-216. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.27462

“Late Holocene Technology Words in Proto-Athabaskan: Implications for Dene-Yeniseian Culture History” Humans 3.3 (2023), 177-192. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/humans3030015

“Recasting Paul as a Chauvinist within the Western Text-Type Manuscript Tradition: Implications for the Authorship Debate on 1 Corinthians 14.34-35” Religions 13.5 (2022), 432. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050432

“The Union of Two Worlds: Reconstructing Proto-Athabaskan Folklore and Religion” Folklore (London) 127.1 (2016), 26-50. https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.2015.1119976

"The Cave Who Never Was: Outsider Archaeology and Failed Collaboration in the USA." Public Archaeology 11.2 (2012), 73-95. https://doi.org/10.1179/1465518712Z.0000000007

“The Life of the Saint and the Animal: Asian Religious Influence in the Medieval Christian West" Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture 3.2 (2009), 169-194. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v3i2.169