By understanding the past, we come to a better understanding of the present; by studying humanity in all its guises, we come closer to understanding ourselves. At the turn of the 20th century WHR Rivers pioneered the modern anthropological method at Cambridge, becoming the first director of the University's psychological laboratory. Today his successors in the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology bring us closer to solving great puzzles such as the origins of modern man. Working with Banaras Hindu University and Uttar Pradesh State Department of Archaeology, Professor Dilip Chakrabarti recently completed a 14-year study of the Ganga Plain, covering more than 1,000 sites in northern India, many of them hitherto unrecorded. Two new projects funded by UKIERI (see below) will shed further light on early Indian history by bringing together archaeologists and anthropologists from Cambridge and India.
