Life at and before the Institute of Archaeology: a personal retrospect

• Main Author: David Harris
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: UCL Press 2005-08-01
• Series: Archaeology International
• Online Access: http://www.ai-journal.com/articles/74

When Ken Thomas kindly invited me to contribute to this issue of Archaeology International, my first thought was what a pleasure it would be just to write an article rather than edit the whole issue. Having retired from the job only last year, I well knew the magnitude of the task facing the new editor: one that is challenging and onerous but also intellectually rewarding. So I welcomed the opportunity to add my mite to the sequence of retrospective articles that have been a feature of AI since it was launched nine years ago. But, unlike the former students and staff who have recalled in previous issues the early years in St John's Lodge in Regent's Park, my association with the Institute is much more recent. So rather than write only about the 1980s and 1990s, I have (with Ken's encouragement) taken a longer retrospective view, recalling how I followed a path from geography into archaeology, which led eventually to my joining the staff of the Institute in January 1980.