Prof. (em.) Dr. D. W. Harding

Dennis Harding graduated from the University of Oxford, where he also gained his doctorate in archaeology under the supervision of Professor Christopher Hawkes. For thirty years he was Abercromby Professor of Archaeology in the University of Edinburgh, 1977-2007, serving terms as Dean of Arts and subsequently as Vice-Principal of the University. He had previously been Lecturer in Celtic Archaeology at the University of Durham, where he had taken up flying for archaeological air photography, principally operating in the Anglo-Scottish borders and in the Northern and Western Isles. His aerial survey was complemented by excavation, notably in the Western Isles, and the results of his research were included in his synthesis The Iron Age in Northern Britain (2004; second edition 2017).