Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe (born 10 December 1939), usually known as Sir Barry Cunliffe, is a British archaeologist and academic. He was Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford from 1972 to 2007. Since 2007, he has been an emeritus professor.
Cunliffe's decision to become an archaeologist was sparked at the age of nine by the discovery of Roman remains on his uncle's farm in Somerset. Cunliffe studied at Portsmouth Northern Grammar School (now the Mayfield School) and read archaeology and anthropology at St John's College, Cambridge. While a student at the University of Cambridge, he ran and won an election against his course mate and fellow Johnian Colin Renfrew in order to become president of the University of Cambridge Archaeological Field Club (AFC). He became a lecturer at the University of Bristol in 1963. Fascinated by the Roman remains in nearby Bath he embarked on a programme of excavation and publication.
In 1966, he became an unusually young professor when he took the chair at the newly founded Department of Archaeology at the University of Southampton. There he became involved in the excavation (1961–1968) of the Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex. Another site in southern England led him away from the Roman period. He began a long series of summer excavations (1969–1988) of the Iron Age hill fort at Danebury, Hampshire and was subsequently involved in the Danebury Environs Programme (1989–1995). His interest in Iron Age Britain and Europe generated a number of publications and he became an acknowledged authority on the Celts.
Other sites he has worked on include Hengistbury Head in Dorset, Mount Batten in Devon, Le Câtel in Jersey, and Le Yaudet in Brittany, reflecting his interest in the communities of Atlantic Europe during the Iron Age. In his later works, he sets out the thesis that Celtic culture originated along the length of the Atlantic seaboard in the Bronze Age before being taken inland, which stands in contrast to the more generally accepted view that Celtic origins lie with the Hallstatt culture of the Alps. One of his most recent projects has been in the Najerilla valley, La Rioja, Spain, which straddles "the interface between the Celtiberian heartland of central Iberia and the Atlantic zone of the Bay of Biscay".
Cunliffe was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 1979. He lives with his wife in Oxford.
President, Council for British Archaeology (1976–1979)
Fellow of the British Academy (FBA; 1979)
Former President, University of Cambridge Archaeological Field Club (AFC)
Member, Ancient Monuments Advisory Committee of English Heritage, since 1984
Honorary Graduate, Doctor of Science, University of Bath (1984)
Member, Advisory Committee of The Discovery Programme (Ireland), since 1991
Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1994 Birthday Honours for services to archaeology
Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA)
Original Chair of Steering Committee for the e-journal Internet Archaeology
Interim chair of English Heritage in September 2008
Chairman, The British Museum Friends (until 2009)
Founding Fellow, The Learned Society of Wales
Grahame Clark Medal of the British Academy (2004)