Jones graduated from Cardiff University with a degree in zoology, before working as a science teacher in the UK and Greece.
[1] Next, Jones worked as a research assistant at the British School at Athens, before undertaking an MPhil and then PhD in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.
[1] After completing her PhD, Jones worked in the Department of Urban Archaeology, Museum of London, before commencing an academic post at the University of Sheffield in 1984.
[3] From the 1990s onwards, Jones has worked with colleagues including Amy Bogaard to develop the application of functional weed ecology to archaeobotanical assemblages in order to reconstruct past crop husbandry.
[4] More recently, Jones has been utilising DNA of modern landraces to investigate the spread of domesticated cereals into Europe,[5] and working to develop the application of stable isotope analysis to archaeobotanical remains.