James Patrick Mallory (born 1945) is an Irish-American archaeologist and Indo-Europeanist. Mallory is an emeritus professor at Queen's University, Belfast, a member of the Royal Irish Academy and the editor of the Journal of Indo-European Studies and Emania: Bulletin of the Navan Research Group (Belfast).
Mallory received his A.B. in History from Occidental College in California in 1967, then served three years in the US Army as a military police sergeant. He received his Ph.D. in Indo-European studies from UCLA in 1975. He has held several posts at Queen's beginning in 1977, becoming Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology in 1998.
Professor Mallory's research has focused on Early Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe, the problem of the homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, and the archaeology of early Ireland. He favors an integrative approach to these issues, comparing literary, linguistic and archaeological evidence to solve historical puzzles.
One consequence of Professor Mallory's preference for an integrated approach is that he has been strongly critical of the widely publicised theory of Indo-European origins held by Colin Renfrew, which locates the urheimat or homeland of this language family in early Neolithic Anatolia and associates its spread with the spread of agriculture. A key element of his criticism has been a vigorous defence of linguistic palaeontology as a valid tool for solving the Indo-European homeland problem, arguing that Renfrew is sceptical about it precisely because it offers some of the strongest evidence against the latter's own model. Mallory's book with D. Q. Adams, entitled The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World (Oxford University Press 2006) provides a comprehensive account of the reconstructed language Proto-Indo-European and assesses what it can tell us about the society that spoke it.
Mallory was born in Belfast in 1945.
Mallory, J. P. (1989). In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27616-1.
Mallory, J. P.; T. E. McNeill (1991). The Archaeology of Ulster. Belfast: Dufour Editions. ISBN 0-85389-353-5.
Mallory, J. P.; Victor H. Mair (2000). The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05101-1.
Mallory, J. P.; Adams, D. Q. (2006). The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199287910.
Mallory, J. P. (2013). The Origins of the Irish. London–New York: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500051755.
In Search of the Irish Dreamtime: Archaeology and Early Irish Literature. London: Thames & Hudson, 2016.
J.P. Mallory & Brian M. Fagan, eds. The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Mallory, J. P.; Adams, D. Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London and Chicago: Fitzroy-Dearborn. ISBN 1-884964-98-2.
Articles and Chapters
J.P. Mallory, "A Short History of the Indo-European Problem", Journal of Indo-European Studies (JIES) 1 (1973): 21–65.
J.P. Mallory, "Time Perspectives and Proto-Indo-European Culture", World Archaeology 8 (1976): 44–58.
J.P. Mallory, "The Ritual Treatment of the Horse in the Early Kurgan Tradition", JIES 9 (1981): 205–226.
J.P. Mallory and D. Telegin, "Poyava kolesnogo transportu na Ukraini sa radiokarbonnimi dannimi", Problemi khronologii kultur eneolita-bronzovogo veka Ukrainy i Yuga-Vostochnoy Evropy. Dnepropetrovsk, 1984.
J.P. Mallory and M.E. Huld, "Proto-Indo-European 'silver'", Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 97 (1984): 1–12.
J.P. Mallory, "Migration and Language Change", Peregrinatio Gothica III, eds. E. Straume & E. Skar. Oslo: Universitets Oldaksamling, 1992, pp. 145–53.
J.P. Mallory, "The Indo-European Homeland: An Asian Perspective", Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, 54–55 (1994–1995): 237–54.
J.P. Mallory, "Speculations on the Xinjiang Mummies", JIES 23 (1995): 3-4.
J.P. Mallory, "The Indo-European Homeland Problem: A Matter of Time", The Indo-Europeanization of Northern Europe, eds. Karlene Jones-Bley & Martin E. Huld. Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man, 1996, pp. 1–22.
J.P. Mallory, "The Indo-European phenomenon: linguistics and archaeology", History of Humanity, vol. 2: From the Third Millennium to the Seventh Century B.C., eds. A.H. Dani & J.P. Mohen. Paris: UNESCO; London/NY: Routledge, 1996, pp. 80–91; 2nd edn., 2003, pp. 239–265.
J.P. Mallory, "The Homelands of the Indo-Europeans", Archaeology and Language I: Theoretical and Methodological Orientations, eds. Roger Blench & Matthew Spriggs. London/NY: Routeledge, 1997, pp. 93–121.
J.P. Mallory, "Indoevropeyskie prarodiny", VDI 1 (1997).
J.P. Mallory, "Aspects of Indo-European agriculture", Studies in Honor of Jaan Puhvel. Part 1: Ancient Languages and Philology, eds. D. Disterheft, M. Huld & J. Greppin. Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man, 1997, pp. 221–240.
J.P. Mallory, "The Old Irish Chariot", Mír Curad: Studies in Honor of Calvert Watkins, eds. J. Jasanoff, H. Melchert, & L. Oliver. Innsbruck: Innsbrucker Beitrage zur Sprachwissenschaft, 1998, pp. 451–464.
J.P. Mallory, "A European Perspective on Indo-Europeans in Asia", The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia, vol. 1, ed. Victor Mair. Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man, 1998, pp. 175–201.
J.P. Mallory, "Agriculture and the Indo-European Dispersals", Proceedings of the XIII International Congress Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, Forli, Italy, 8–14 September 1996, vol. 3, eds. R. Cremonesi, C. Tozzi, A. Vigliardi, & C. Peretto. Forli: Abaco, 1998, pp. 185–90.
J.P. Mallory, "Uralics and Indo-Europeans: Problems of Time and Space", Early Contacts Between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistics and Archaeological Considerations, eds. Christian Carpelan, Asko Parpola, & Petteri Koskikallio. Helsinki, Suomalais-Ugrilainen Eura, 2001, pp. 345–66.
J.P. Mallory, "Indo-Europeans and Steppelands: The Model of Language Shift", Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual UCLA Indo-European conference, eds. Karlene Jones-Bley, Martin E. Huld, A.D. Volpe, & M. Robbins Dexter. Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man, 2002, pp. 1–27.
J.P. Mallory, "Archaeological Models and Asian Indo-Europeans", Proceedings of the British Academy 116 (2002): 19–42.
J.P. Mallory, "Indigenous Indo-Aryans: the preservation and total distribution principles", JIES 30 (2003): 375–387.
J.P. Mallory, "The Date of Pazyryk", Ancient Interactions: East and West in Eurasia, eds. K. Boyle, Colin Renfrew, & M. Levine. Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs, 2003, pp. 199–211.
J.P. Mallory, "Horse-mounted invaders from the Russo-Kazakh steppe or agricultural colonists from western Central Asia? A craniometric investigation of the Bronze Age settlement of Xinjiang", American Journal of Physical Anthropology 124 (2004): 199–222.
J.P. Mallory, "Indo-European warfare", War and Sacrifice, eds. T. Pollard & I. Banks. Leiden: Brill, 2006, pp. 77–98.
J.P. Mallory, "Migrations in Prehistoric Eurasia: Problems in the Correlation of Archaeology and Language", Aramazd: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies 3 (2008): 7–38.
J.P. Mallory, "The Anatolian homeland hypothesis and the Anatolian Neolithic", Proceedings of the 20th Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, eds. S. Jamison, H. C. Melchert & B. Vine. Bremen: Hempen, 2009, pp. 133–162.
J.P. Mallory, "New radiocarbon dates and a review of the chronology of prehistoric populations from the Minusinsk Basin, Southern Siberia, Russia", Radiocarbon 51 (2009): 243–273.
J.P. Mallory, "L'hypothèse des steppes", Dossiers d'archéologie 338 (2010): 28–35.
J.P. Mallory, "Twenty-first century clouds over Indo-European homelands", Journal of Language Relationship 9 (2013): 145–154.
