Edward Watkinson

Edward Watkinson was, according to Bernice Summerfield, "one of the century's most noted archaeologists", and "a bit of a hero".

His name was attached to a Chair of Archaeology that Summerfield once held at St Oscar's College, Oxford. His appetite for knowledge was voracious. Summerfield claimed that he'd published more than 10,000 papers in his lifetime, though about half those were written colloboratively. Nevertheless, he performed wholly original research into subjects as diverse as ethnomychology, folsom points and Lvan glass megaliths. Summerfield once wryly noted to her students that the fact he had four arms made her "suspect he could type two papers simultaneously", thus aiding his prolificacy.

He once spent a couple of years investigating the origins of human civlisation and became confinced that humans used grain initially to make beer not bread — a view expounded in Beer Before Bread? A Theory Revisited, a paper that was a set part of Summerfield's syllabi. (BNA: Walking to Babylon

He was also known to have written Introduction to Quantum Esotericism with Gustous R Thripsted. (EDA: Unnatural History)

Behind the scenes

Technically, Unnatural History does not reveal that the "Watkinson" in question is Edward. However, as both books were at least partially written by Kate Orman, and Orman goes out of her way in Babylon to explain that Watkinson wrote many of his papers collaboratively, the reference is unlikely to indicate anyone else.