Facts:   - other names: michael parker pearson    - known for: stonehenge riverside project    - birth name: michael parker pearson      - birth date: 26 june 1957    - name: mike parker pearson    - nationality: british    - alma mater: university of southampton , king 's college , cambridge    - occupation: archaeologist   Based on these bullet points, write a short biography describing the life of mike parker pearson .
Answer:
michael ` mike ' parker pearson , fsa , fsa scot , fba -lrb- born 26 june 1957 -rrb- is an english archaeologist specialising in the study of the neolithic british isles , madagascar and the archaeology of death and burial .a professor at the ucl institute of archaeology , he previously worked for 25 years as a professor at the university of sheffield in england , and was the director of the stonehenge riverside project .a prolific author , he has also written a variety of books on the subject .parker pearson gained his ba in archaeology from southampton university in 1979 .supervised by ian hodder as a post-graduate at cambridge , parker pearson was a contemporary of sheena crawford , daniel miller , henrietta moore , christopher tilley and alice welbourn ; these students were influenced by hodder 's ideas , then a pioneering part of the post-processualist current within archaeological theory .he went on to gain his phd at the university of cambridge in 1985 , producing a thesis on burials and bog bodies in iron age denmark .a media personality , parker pearson has appeared several times in the channel 4 show `` time team '' in particular in one looking at the excavation of durrington walls .he also appeared in the national geographic channel documentary `` stonehenge decoded '' , along with the pbs programme `` nova : secrets of stonehenge '' .