A Life in African Archaeology: Autobiographical Notes

This account is intentionally selective. After a brief background note, it covers eight years as an employee in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) during the final months of British rule and the early years of independence. This was followed by six years with a UK-sponsored but Kenya-based research organization. The next two years were spent in Scotland at a large municipal museum and finally a full quarter-century at the University of Cambridge in a sequence of positions concerned with museum curatorship and with teaching and research on African archaeology. At that stage in my career, I initiated large-scale excavations at Aksum in Ethiopia and was involved with UNESCO affairs such as the designation of World Heritage sites.