Charles Higham (archaeologist)

Charles Higham ONZM (born 1939) is a British archaeologist most noted for his work in Southeast Asia. Among his noted contributions to archaeology are his work (including several documentaries) about the Angkor civilization in Cambodia, and his current work in Northeast Thailand. He is a Research Professor at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand and lives at Company Bay.

Charles Higham was educated at Raynes Park County Grammar School in South London. It was here that he developed an interest in archaeology after volunteering to excavate at the Bronze Age site of Snail Down and Arcy sur Cure in France. In 1957, he was offered a place at St Catharine's College, Cambridge to read Archaeology and Anthropology. However, being too young for National Service, he spent two years at the Institute of Archaeology, London University, specialising in the archaeology of the Western Roman Provinces under Sheppard Frere. His teachers included Sir Max Mallowan, the husband of Agatha Christie, and Dame Kathleen Kenyon. During his time at the Institute, he excavated at the Roman city of Verulamium, and the Iron Age site of Camp du Charlat in France. In 1959, he went up to Cambridge, and studied the Neolithic Bronze and Iron Ages of Europe. His contemporaries included Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, Sir Barry Cunliffe, Sir Paul Mellars and the Crown Princess of Denmark. He took a double first, was elected a Scholar of his college in 1960, and played for Cambridge University against Oxford in the University Rugby matches of 1961-2.

He was provided with a State Scholarship in 1962, and embarked on his doctoral research on the prehistoric economic history of Switzerland and Denmark. In 1966 he was awarded his doctorate. During the course of his research he played rugby for Bedford, Eastern Counties and became an England triallist in 1963-4. In the latter year, he married Polly Askew. They have two sons, two daughters and twelve grandchildren.

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