Issue no 1, February 1995

Michael Jarrett, Professor of Archaeology at Cardiff, was a natural figure of authority even as a young man, tall with aquiline features and a stentorian voice. After university at Durham, where he read history, followed by doctoral research on Roman North Africa, he soon became a familiar and welcome figure at academic gatherings in Britain and abroad, arriving at speed in his MG sports car - though motor-cycling was his real passion.

His career as a university teacher was entirely based at Cardiff, where he was promoted to a professorship in 1978. Administration had little appeal but he carried out many chores in this area both for the university and several other bodies.

Throughout his life he was active in field archaeology. He enjoyed excavation and relished the company of friends and colleagues, preferably in heated argument over ideas, methods and personalities. He railed against pretentious novelty and was sceptical towards theory, more so in later years.

In the early years at Cardiff he explored the Roman forts of Wales in a rapid succession of trial trenches but later settled to the long-term exploration of Whitton, a rural site in the Glamorgan plain. Later he returned to the medieval period, and for nearly two decades was engaged in annual excavations at the deserted village of West Whelpington in the hills of central Northumberland.

He was a fine teacher, remembered with affection both by his pupils in Cardiff and by those whom he instructed through his writings. His revision of Nash-Williams's The Roman Frontier in Wales (1969) remains the standard work but there was also a succession of papers and published lectures, many of which reflected his lively approach to matters of scholarly argument. Mike Jarrett cared deeply for the principles of his discipline yet never took his work too seriously.

Michael Grierson Jarrett: born Fleetwood, 8 January 1934; Lecturer, Reader, Professor of Archaeology, University of Wales, Cardiff 1960-94; FSA 1966; died Nash, Gwent, 14 November 1994.

John Wilkes is Professor of Greek and Roman Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, London