Professor D. W. Harding

Abercromby Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology

Dennis Harding is only the third occupant of the Abercromby Chair, his predecessors being V. Gordon Childe (1927-46) and Stuart Piggott (1946-77).  Left - A brace of Abercromby Professors: Professor Dennis Harding (on the right), as Dean, presented the Laureation Address for Professor Stuart Piggott, who was awarded an Honorary D.Litt in 1984.

 

Iron Age roundhouse at Pimperne, photographed from 20 metres  Pimperne reconstruction at the Butser Ancient Farm dressed for filming

As a student he had directed excavations at Pimperne in Dorset, which formed the basis for a classic reconstruction at the Butser Ancient Farm (subsequently published as An Iron Age Settlement in Dorset; Excavation and Reconstruction, 1993, with I. M. Blake and P. J. Reynolds).  He then studied at the Oxford Institute of Archaeology under the late Professor Christopher Hawkes, researching aspects of the southern British Iron Age, and was briefly Assistant Keeper in the Department of Antiquities of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, before moving to a lectureship in the University of Durham.

At Durham he developed a practical interest in archaeological air-photography, and for more than twenty years maintained a current private pilot's licence, surveying early settlements in the borders and further afield.

Hownam Law Hillfort, Roxburghshire, with hut-platforms showing under snow	Woden Law East; palisaded enclosure, roundhouses and cord-rig agriculture under snow

From early in his career he has been actively involved in hillfort researches, in 1976 editing a volume on Hillforts: Later Prehistoric Earthworks in Britain and Ireland, which contains the only published accounts of several key excavations.

Crannogs in Loch Tay from the air

	The Calanais Archaeological Research  and Visitor Centres
On his appointment to Edinburgh in 1977, Professor Harding's research interests focused first on borders prehistory (v. Later Prehistoric Settlement in South-East Scotland, ed. 1982) and since 1985 on the archaeology of the Hebrides and the Atlantic seaways (see Lewis web pages).
	He was responsible for the University's acquisition of its 200-acre estate at Calanais farm on Lewis to serve as a base for the Western Isles research programme, and for the launching of the original campaign which led to the building of the Calanais Visitor Centre, managed by a locally-based Trust, Urras nan Tursachan.

From 1983-86 Professor Harding was Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and from 1988-91 Vice-Principal of the University, with special responsibility for staffing and student affairs. One of his responsibilities as Vice-Principal was implementing a government decision to close the Edinburgh Dental school, which was based in the Old High School building now occupied by the Department of Archaeology.

After this administrative interval Professor Harding resumed his full-time commitment to archaeological teaching and research.     Excavations at the key site of broch and post-broch occupation at Beirgh in west Lewis were suspended in 1995, and a first volume of the final report was published in 2000 with Dr Simon Gilmour under the title The Iron Age Settlement at Beirgh, Riof, Isle of Lewis: Excavations 1985-95, Vol 1, The Structures and Stratigraphy.   Publication of the first volume of the final report of the nearby island dun settlement at Loch Bharabhat has also appeared as Dun Bharabhat, Cnip, an Iron Age Settlement in West Lewis, Vol.1, The Structures and Material Culture (2000).   Further publication of the results of the Western Isles Research programme is planned, subject to funding and resources being available. A review of the results is also included in Professor Harding's latest synthesis /The Iron Age in Northern Britain: Celts and Romans, Natives and Invaders/, Routledge, 2004.
 

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Last Updated 29/10/2004