Currently, my work focuses on the themes of 1) violence, martial culture, and their impacts on social and political organisation, 2) captivity, slavery, and social inequality, and 3) migration, conflict, and coalescence in cross-cultural and transnational settings. These are explored and articulated primarily through discussions of Late Iron Age society, but with substantial reference to broader, global archaeologies of migration, slavery, conflict, and state formation across and outside of the broader cultural sphere of the so-called ‘Viking diaspora.’

My work is underpinned by an interdisciplinary approach that situates discussions of material culture within wider frameworks. In recent years, a key component of my research strategy has been to utilise theory and data from a range of fields including anthropology, psychology, sociology, geography, and the cognitive science of religion as a means of developing novel approaches to longstanding historical questions. I also make regular use of cross-cultural and comparative frameworks, drawing on archaeological and historical case studies dating from prehistory to the early modern period.

I participate in a range of dissemination activities. These have included participation in public lecture programmes, working as a consultant for television, film, and music projects, and appearing in podcasts and TV documentary series. I currently work with and as a consultant for the Grimfrost Hird historical reenactment group.

Selected Publications:

1. Raffield, B., Kjellström, A. & Fredengren, C. In Press. ‘Inequality and marginalisation in the Viking-Age burial record.’ In: A. Klevnäs & C. Ljung, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Death and Burial in the Viking Age.
2. Cook, G., Lee, S.J., Raffield, B., Stone, E. & Webster, J. 2026. ‘Sourcing slaves.’ In: J. Webster, C.M. Cameron & G. Cook, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Comparative Archaeology of Slavery. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 111-49.
3. Birch, J., Raffield, B., Arkush, E., Roscoe, P., Allen, M.W., Cameron, C.M., Gragson, T.L., Hedenstierna-Jonson, C., Lindblom, M., & Thompson, V.D. 2026. ‘Breaking down the “barbarian” trope: Strategic military coordination in decentralized collectives’, Journal of Archaeological Research, 34, 63-105.
4. Arkush, E., Roscoe, P., Birch, J. & Raffield, B. 2025. ‘Problematizing ‘alliance’ in anthropological archaeology.’ Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 79, 101706.
5. Raffield, B., Bønding, S., Cooijmans, C., Moen, M. & Taggart, D. 2025. ‘Warrior institutions and martial networks in Viking-Age Scandinavia’, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 78, 101661.
6. Speidel, L., Silva, M., Booth, T., Raffield, B., Anastasiadou, K., Barrington, C., Götherström, A., Heather, P. & Skoglund, P. 2025. ‘High-resolution genomic history of early medieval Europe’, Nature, 637, 118-26.
7. Raffield, B., Fredengren, C., & Kjellström, A. 2024. ‘Narratives of inequality. Towards an archaeology of structural violence in Late Iron Age Scandinavia’, Archaeological Dialogues, 30 (2), 137-62.
8. Raffield, B. 2024. ‘Raiding, warfare, and the viking threat: Tracing the emergence of predatory landscapes in western Europe during the 9^th century CE.’ In: B.J. Bowser & C.M. Cameron, eds. Landscapes of Movement and Predation: Perspectives from Archaeology, History, and Anthropology. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 133-62.
9. Price, N. & Raffield, B. 2024. The Vikings. London & New York: Routledge.
10. Raffield, B., Hirasawa, Y. & Price, N., eds. 2024. Multivocal Archaeologies of the Pacific War, 1941-45: Collaboration, Reconciliation, and Renewal. London & New York: Routledge.
11. Raffield, B. 2022. ‘Bound in captivity: Intersections of viking raiding, slaving, and settlement in Western Europe during the ninth century CE’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 47 (4), 414-37.
12. Ögren, A., Hedenstierna-Jonson, C., Ljungkvist, J., Raffield, B. & Price, N. 2022. ‘New institutional economics in Viking studies: Visualising immaterial culture’, Archaeological Dialogues, 29 (2), 172-87.
13. Raffield, B. 2021. ‘Captifs, traites et marchés: l’esclavage viking [Captives, trade and markets: Viking slavery].’ In: P. Ismard, M. Oualdi, B. Rossi & C. Vidal, eds. Les mondes de l’esclavage – Une histoire comparée. Paris: Le Seuil, 109-14.
14. Raffield, B. 2021. ‘Slave-raiding and -trading.’ In: J. Varberg & P. Pentz, eds. Join the Vikings – The Raid. Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark, 201-18.
15. Raffield, B., Gardeła, L. & Toplak, M.S. 2021. ‘Slavery in Viking Age Scandinavia: A review of the archaeological evidence.’ In: M.S. Toplak, H. Østhus & R. Simek, eds. Viking-Age Slavery. Wien: Fassbaender, 7-57.
16. Raffield, B. 2021. ‘Broken worlds: Towards an archaeology of the shatter zone’, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 28, 871-910.
17. Raffield, B. 2020. ‘The Danelaw reconsidered: Colonization and conflict in Viking-Age England’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 16, 181-220.
18. Raffield, B. 2019. ‘Playing Vikings: Militarism, hegemonic masculinities, and childhood enculturation during the Viking Age’, Current Anthropology, 60 (6), 813-35.
19. Raffield, B. 2019. ‘The slave markets of the Viking world: Comparative perspectives on an ‘invisible archaeology’’, Slavery & Abolition, 40 (4), 682-705.
20. Raffield, B., Price, N. & Collard, M. 2019. ‘Religious belief and cooperation: An alternative view from Viking-Age Scandinavia’, Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9 (1), 2-22.
21. Raffield, B., Price, N. & Collard, M. 2017. ‘Polygyny, concubinage and the social life of women in Viking-Age Scandinavia’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 13, 165-209.
22. Raffield, B., Price, N. & Collard, M. 2017. ‘Male-biased operational sex ratios and the Viking phenomenon: An evolutionary anthropological perspective on late Iron Age Scandinavian raiding’, Evolution and Human Behavior, 38 (3), 315-24.
23. Raffield, B. 2016. ‘Bands of brothers: A re-appraisal of the Viking Great Army and its implications for the Scandinavian colonization of England’, Early Medieval Europe, 24 (3), 308-37.
24. Raffield, B., Greenlow, C., Price, N. & Collard, M. 2016. ‘Ingroup identification, identity fusion, and the formation of Viking warbands’, World Archaeology, 48 (1), 35-50.
25. Raffield, B. 2014. ‘“A river of knives and swords”: Ritually deposited weapons in English watercourses and wetlands during the Viking Age’, European Journal of Archaeology, 17 (4), 634-55.