[1] He studied English Language and Literature at Keble College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1963.
[2] He spent the 1965/66 academic year as an assistant keeper in the Department of Antiquities of the Ashmolean Museum.
[1] He completed his DPhil in 1969 with a doctoral thesis titled "The Iron Age of the Upper Thames basin and its further relations to other regions of southern Britain".
[1] In 1977, he was appointed Abercromby Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, succeeding Stuart Piggott.
[3] In addition to his chair, he was dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1983 to 1986, and vice-principal of the University of Edinburgh from 1988 to 1991.