[3] Insoll undertook his undergraduate studies in archaeology at the University of Sheffield from 1989 to 1992,[2] and took part in a training excavation at Cill Donnain on the island of South Uist.
Insoll's initial archaeological research was completed for an undergraduate dissertation on Chinese ceramics collected during surveys in Ras Mkumbuu and Mtambwe Mkuu, Pemba Island, Tanzania.
From 1992 to 1995 Insoll completed his PhD on trans-Saharan trade and Islamisation in the city of Gao and its surrounding region in eastern Mali, research that was continued in 1996 as part of a post-doctoral fellowship.
This provided archaeological confirmation for the pre-Islamic occupation of the city and contributed to the dismantling of the ‘Arab stimulus’ hypothesis where indicators of complexity were thought to be externally derived.
[7] Subsequent similar source analysis of carnelian beads, the first in-depth study to be completed on this material using Laser Ablation Inductively coupled Mass Spectrometry, indicated that some were probably of Indian origin, and others of West African provenance.
[12] In 1994 whilst supporting Rachel MacLean in her PhD research in Rakai district, Uganda, he completed a survey of mosque architecture in Buganda,[13] and of sites associated with the expedition of John Hanning Speke between 1861 and 1863.
The aims of the project were to reconstruct settlement patterns in Bahrain from the Late Antique period onwards, and evaluate archaeological evidence for trade, conversion to Islam, and the composition of the population over time.
[20][21] Between 2004 and 2013, and contiguous with the Early Islamic Bahrain project, Insoll directed research examining the archaeology of indigenous African religions in Northern Ghana, with a particular focus on the Talensi of the Tong Hills, and subsequently the figurines of Koma Land.
[25] The use of scientific investigative techniques was expanded in the second phase of the research undertaken by Insoll to help in interpreting the meaning and role of enigmatic ceramic human and animal figurines and the mound contexts they were found during University of Ghana excavations directed by Prof. Benjamin Kankpeyeng.
[31] Insoll's first research in Ethiopia (2013) was also completed for the same monograph, a survey of cattle modification practices amongst the Mursi undertaken with Dr Timothy Clack and Mr Olirege Rege.
[32] Between 2016 and 2022, Timothy Insoll was Principal Investigator on a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant funded project, Becoming Muslim: Conversion to Islam and Islamisation in Eastern Ethiopia.
Harlaa was a major trade and manufacturing centre, with a particular burst of activity between the 11th and 13th centuries attested by material from a cosmopolitan range of sources, China, Yemen, Iran, Central Asia, Egypt, India, and across the Horn of Africa.
Isotopic analyses of teeth from Muslim and non-Muslim burials suggested significantly different Islamisation processes to the Gao region with greater population mobility between urban and rural environments and less pastoralist conversion being influential factors.
[46] In 2018 he curated, Remembering the Dead in Bahraini Shia Cemeteries (2018) also in the Street Gallery,[47] and co-curated with Prof. Benjamin Kankpeyeng, Dr Samuel Nkumbaan, and Mr Malik Saako Mahmoud, Fragmentary Ancestors: Figurines and Archaeology from Koma Land, at the Manchester Museum (2013–2014).
In June 2018 Insoll co-organised the conference Representing Africa in British Museums, in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, with Tony Eccles, exploring the themes of cultural representation, the construction of time(lessness), and historical ethnography,[50] and in January 2020 organised the inaugural Indian Ocean World Archaeology (IOW-Arch) conference at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter.
Insoll has also developed the successful widening participation masterclasses, Pots and Mosques: Explorations in Islamic Archaeology (2018) at the University of Exeter and, The World in Manchester.