Martin Carver was an army officer for 15 years, a freelance commercial archaeologist for 13 years and Professor of Archaeology at the University of York for 22 years, retiring in 2008. From 2002 until 2012 he was editor of the global archaeology journal Antiquity. He has researched post-Roman towns in Britain, France, Italy and Algeria and excavated large sites of the first millennium AD at Sutton Hoo (Suffolk) and Portmahomack (north-east Scotland). He has produced numerous articles, lectures and broadcasts on the peoples of early Britain, and his latest books are Sutton Hoo: Encounters with Early England, Portmahomack: Monastery of the Picts and Archaeological Investigation (for Routledge).