Trevor Watkins is an emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh where he taught prehistoric archaeology of the east Mediterranean and southwest Asia for many years. He led excavations in Cyprus, Syria, Iraq and Turkey. For many years, his research has been focused on the Neolithic period in southwest Asia, between twelve and eight thousand years ago. In recent years, he has been concentrating on relating the results of recent archaeological research to the latest theoretical work by leading researchers in cognitive archaeology and the field of cultural evolutionary theory. If evolution takes place over time, then archaeologists should be able to document and calibrate the process with material evidence.