Lawrence travelled and excavated extensively in Israel, Jordan and Egypt before attending the University of Durham where he studied archaeology. He specialised in ancient human remains during his Masters' at Liverpool University Medical School, followed by a year of travel and excavation in the UK and Africa. He won a scholarship to attend University College London, where he wrote his Doctorate on ancient populations of the Western Mediterranean basin and the Canary Islands. He has worked at the Peruvian site of Pachacamac since 2004, and has worked in Egypt since 2012. He currently directs a major excavation in northern Egypt, at a site dating to c.3000 BC, and also works with historical forensics at sites connected to the Spanish Civil War. He lectured in bioarchaeology at the University of London and the University of Winchester from 2004-2021, and has written extensively on bioarchaeology and osteology in a range of academic journals and edited volumes. He is particularly interested in palaeontology, art history, the rise of civilisation and the history of London. He has developed a particularly irreverent guiding style that appeals to children from 5 to 105!