Born on July 8, 1965, Daniel Jackson is the only living child of Melburn and Claire Jackson, archaeologists who were crushed to death while supervising the placement of a piece of Egyptian art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Daniel's maternal grandfather and only living relative, Nick Ballard (played by Jan Rubeš), was a noted Dutch archaeologist and too busy to take the orphaned Jackson under his wing. Though placed in foster care, Daniel visited his grandfather in a mental institution until they had an argument over his failing career and Daniel left. Daniel became an archaeologist and Linguist who speaks 23 earthly (plus several extraterrestrial) languages—he is shown speaking at least English, Russian, German, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Egyptian, Goa'uld, Ancient, and Unas.

In the 1994 film Stargate, the character of Daniel is introduced in a scene in which he is presenting a lecture at an academic seminar. However, he finds little acceptance there of his theory that the Pyramids of Giza are much older than they are thought to be. An aged woman named Catherine Langford approaches him to offer him a job deciphering the cover-stones of a device found in Egypt. Jackson uses his knowledge of ancient Egyptian languages to make the device, named the Stargate, function.

For his portrayal of Daniel Jackson, Michael Shanks was nominated for a Leo Award in 2000 for "Best Performance by a Male in a Dramatic Series" in 2000 for the episode "Forever in a Day". After a 2004 Leo win in the category "Dramatic Series: Best Lead Performance by a Male" for "Lifeboat", Shanks was nominated for a 2005 Leo Award in the same category for the episode "Threads". Shanks was nominated for a Saturn Award in the category "Best Supporting Actor on Television" in 2001, 2004 and 2005.

He also appears in three episodes of Stargate Atlantis and four episodes of Stargate Universe. For his portrayal of Jackson, Shanks has been nominated for three Saturn Awards for Best Actor on Television, and for five Leo Awards, winning two: Best Lead Performance by a Male in a Dramatic Series for Stargate SG-1 in 2004, and Best Lead Performance by a Male in a Feature Length Drama for Continuum in 2009.

The show's staff and Writers occasionally make jokes about Daniel's frequent "deaths" on the show. In the season 7 episode "Heroes", one of the SG teams examine some ancient ruins and a scientist says "Dr. Jackson is gonna die when he sees this!" to which another member (Col. David Dixon, played by Adam Baldwin) responds "What?! Again?". Comparisons have also been made between Daniel and Kenny from the cartoon series South Park. Daniel's first death is by staff blast while he defends O'Neil; he is resurrected by Ra with a sarcophagus in the film. Daniel flat lines in Season 4's "The Light". He dies of radiation poisoning in season 5's "Meridian" and Ascends to a higher plane until he reappears in Season 7's "Fallen (part 1)". He is killed by RepliCarter at the very end of "Reckoning" and is seen at a midway point between Ascension and mortality before finally retaking human form in "Threads". Daniel is presumed dead after SG-1 is brainwashed to believe this in Season 1's "Fire and Water". Daniel also is killed by Teal'c several times in a virtual reality system in Season 8's "Avatar". Other deaths generally involve Daniel's teammates: they die together in "The Nox" (where they get resurrected by the Nox) and in the alternate Future of "2010"; their robot versions are killed in "Double Jeopardy", Daniel being the first to die; and a Goa'uld-possessed alternate timeline version of Daniel is shot by Teal'c in "Moebius", while in another timeline in the same episode, all of SG-1 are killed except Daniel. In the series first instance of an alternate timeline, the Daniel from that timeline is also presumed dead as his last known location is Egypt which is shown to have been attacked by the Goa'uld. In Stargate: Continuum Daniel is feared dead when he asks Carter and Mitchell to leave him behind while they search for help in the Arctic, only to be rescued by Col. O'Neill. Jackson is again killed by a Jaffa staff weapon near the end before Mitchell uses Ba'al's time-travel device to prevent Ba'al invading and conquering Earth.

Jackson, as an archaeologist, becomes the stereotypical academic – extremely smart, nerdy, socially awkward, and quirky. As a character, which further exemplifies this stereotype, Daniel represents an antithesis to the military stereotype of shoot first, ask questions later. Jackson is frequently depicted as approaching other cultures; past, present, and Future, in a culturally sensitive manner, sometimes siding with their interests above those of the military back on Earth. It should also be noted that Daniel seems more akin to a pseudo-archaeologist than a scientist. Pseudo-archaeology operates, generally, outside of the empirical and analytical methods of the profession of archaeology, and often is associated with claims of extraterrestrial life, magic, and other phenomena. In the fictional universe of Stargate, Daniel is proven correct about his claims that the Egyptian pyramids are much older than anyone believes, and even finds out they are of extraterrestrial design. As Meskell observed of the film Stargate: “Egypt represents everything Other, everything we cannot fathom or explain, all things ritualized, sacrificed and sexual’ and summed up in the film as the queered, extraterrestrial Ra, like Egypt identified as inexplicable, unnatural and evil...”(1998a:73).