In 1953, frustrated by the many rules that surrounded post-war food production, Higgs sold his farm, and undertook a major career change, entering Cambridge University to read the post-graduate diploma in archaeology that was then offered.
Here he founded a department with new ideas under Professor Grahame Clark, who had recently excavated the site of Star Carr in Yorkshire, and had published his highly influential Prehistoric Europe: the Economic Basis.
This investigation became the focus of a series of influential papers on the Haua Fteah faunal sequence, specifically examining the relationship between the animal bones identified there and the environmental setting of the site.
His main reason lay in the differences between the fauna of Ksar Akil and that of the Wadi Maghareh caves, only 200 km to the south (Garrod and Bate 1939).
The steep mountains of the Lebanese coastal region supported the wild goats and deer found at Ksar Akil, and this contrasted sharply with the setting at Mount Carmel, where the low, steppic hinterland supported mainly gazelle, the bones of which predominated: Higgs argued that long-term trends reflected the most effective adaptation by the human groups living there, subject to the limitations of the prevailing technology, and thus the faunal remains will reflect the setting of the site.
His papers remain a lucid and important exposition of climatic change within the Mediterranean basin, and the factors that underlay the hunters' decisions.
Beginning in 1962, Higgs undertook field explorations in Epirus, taking with him a small team of students that included future archaeologists Charles Higham and Rhys Jones.
The latter returned half an hour later, with Jones's hat laden with Neanderthal stone tools, thus establishing for the first time a well-dated presence for the Palaeolithic era in Greece.
Each site was shown to have a lengthy sequence of occupation (at Asprochaliko beginning in the Middle Palaeolithic period) and extending to the end of the ice age.
Soon after his graduation from his Diploma studies, Higgs was appointed as 'Assistant Director of Research' within the Department of Archaeology at Cambridge, a post he held to retirement.
[citation needed] He continued with his fieldwork in Greece and Israel, working always with a small devoted group of students, all attracted by his provocative and inspirational teaching.
Charles Higham wishes it to be recorded that during the 1962 fieldwork in Greece, the food cooked by Eric Higgs's wife was excellent and the eight weeks were a superb experience.