Nicholas Jeremy Thomas FBA FAHA (born 1960) is an Australian-born anthropologist, Professor of Historical Anthropology, and Director, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge since 2006, and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge since 2007.
He has worked in Fiji and New Zealand, various archives and museums in Europe, North America, and in the Pacific region.
[1] He participated in a workshop at the British Museum from November 2016 to examine the provenance of the Gweagal Shield, the shield originating from the Aboriginal Australian Gweagal people of the Botany Bay area, believed to have been taken in April 1770 by Captain Cook's expedition.
[3] As of 2020[update] he is Professor of Historical Anthropology and Director at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, a member of the Conseil d’orientation scientifique of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris as well as the International Advisory Board of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.
[4] He was awarded the 2010 Wolfson History Prize for his book Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire.