Personal Statement
Professor Baird graduated with an MA and PhD in Archaeology from Edinburgh. He completed his PhD on the Neolithic of the desert zones of the Levant in 1992. Between 1982 and 1987 he carried out excavations, field survey and research on chipped stone and ceramics in the Middle East, in Jordan, Iraq and Cyprus. He has directed three major archaeological field projects, 1) the Tell esh Shuna project, in Jordan dealing with the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age of the southern Levant; 2) the Konya Plain Survey in Turkey dealing with the long-term settlement history of central Anatolia, 10,000 BC- 1750 AD; 3) the Pınarbaşı and Boncuklu projects in Turkey dealing with the appearance of the first sedentary and agricultural societies.