Introduction

Since its foundation as an independent Institute within the University of London fifty-three years ago, the Institute of Archaeology has contributed to research in many aspects of the developing discipline in many different parts of the world. For the first thirty years of its existence it was exclusively a postgraduate research institution, and it has continued to give high priority to postgraduate studies since the introduction of undergraduate teaching in 1968. Today, one third of the 300 students enrolled at the Institute are postgraduates, over 50 of whom are research students registered for MPhil/PhD degrees. Most of the MA and MSc students also undertake their own research projects as part of the Master's degree. Institute postgraduates are thus involved in a multitude of diverse investigations, in Britain, continental Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Americas, and each year they make, collectively, a very substantial contribution to archaeological knowledge.