caption image_size nationality field work_institutions image article_title name
gordon hillman 150px british archaeobotany university college london gordon_hillman . png gordon hillman
 gordon hillman
gordon hillman

gordon hillman is honorary visiting professor in archaeobotany -lrb- palaeoethnobotany -rrb- at the institute of archaeology , university college london .
he has become well known on uk television via his work with ray mears on the bbc programme ` wild food ' broadcast in 2007 .
his trademark chinstrap beard makes him particularly recognisable .
in conjunction with mears he has written a book to accompany the series also called ` wild food ' and published by hodder & stoughton .
fundamentally the series and resultant book looked at strategies for the gathering , processing and storage of wild plants that were likely to have been available in aboriginal , -lrb- hunter-gatherer -rrb- britain .
in both britain and overseas , hillman has made contributions to prehistoric archaeology , particularly in the area of the domestication of cereals , and in particular rye .
his work in turkey illuminated the ethnography of traditional cereal cultivation and grain processing , and this work , more than any other , has allowed the interpretation of ancient samples of charred grain -lrb- 1981 , 1984 below -rrb- .
hillman has also published widely on the plant remains from late paleolithic wadi kubbaniya in egypt -lrb- 1989 -rrb- and tell abu hureyra in syria -lrb- 2000 -rrb- , where his work on environmental change and mesolithic-neolithic transition is frequently cited and where he is a co-author on numerous papers .
he is known for his work the status of human domestication and cultivation of plants before the neolithic agricultural revolution .
at ucl he held the post of lecturer in archaeobotany , then reader , and is now visiting professor having retired early in 1997 on grounds of ill health .
he suffers from parkinson 's disease .
