Professor Michael Parker Pearson FBA

The prehistory of Britain and western Europe from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. The archaeology of death and burial. The archaeology of Madagascar. Stonehenge and its landscape
Fellow type
UK Fellow
Year elected
2015
Subjects
Archaeology
Sections
Archaeology

Summary

Mike Parker Pearson is Professor of British Later Prehistory at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He has worked on archaeological sites around the world in Denmark, Germany, Greece, Syria, the United States, Madagascar, Easter Island (Rapa Nui) and the Outer Hebrides. In 2010 he was voted the UK's The Archaeologist of the Year. His recent research focus has been Stonehenge where he and his team have discovered a new henge and a settlement where Stonehenge's builders may have lived, as well as two of the quarries for Stonehenge's stones in west Wales, over 140 miles away. He has directed a major project in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, including the excavation of a Bronze Age settlement where he found the first evidence for mummification in prehistoric Britain. Mike is well known for his work on funerary archaeology and has written many books on this and other subjects. After gaining a BA in European Archaeology at Southampton University in 1979, he was awarded a PhD at Cambridge University in 1985. He worked as an Inspector of Ancient Monuments for English Heritage until 1990 and then as lecturer in the Department of Archaeology & Prehistory at Sheffield University.

Current post

Institute of Archaeology, University College London Professor of British Later Prehistory

Publications

Stonehenge: making sense of a prehistoric mystery

Published in 2015

Excavations at Cill Donnain: a Bronze Age settlement and Iron Age wheelhouse in South Uist

Published in 2014

Stonehenge: exploring the greatest Stone Age mystery

Published in 2012

From Machair to Mountains: archaeological survey and excavation in South Uist

Published in 2012

Pastoralists, Warriors and Colonists: the archaeology of southern Madagascar

Published in 2010

The Archaeology of Death and Burial

Published in 1999

Other Fellows of the British Academy

Professor Ronald Hutton FBA

British history between 1500 and 1700; the history of paganism, shamanism, magic and witchcraft, and of attitudes to those phenomena

ronald-hutton.jpg

Professor Salima Ikram FBA

The history, archaeology, and culture of ancient Egypt, especially the mechanics of death (funerary rituals and mummification), the role of animals, environmental change, foodways, and rock art

Salima Ikram FBA

Professor David Mattingly FBA

Archaeology Southern Europe Italy Art and Archaeology of Rome, Italy and the Roman Provinces

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