Vere Gordon Childe

1892 - 1957

Vere Gordon Childe, born on April 14, 1892, was a prominent archaeologist and scholar in North Sydney, Australia. Childe was a graduate of Sydney University and Oxford University and early in his career he was noted as the most influential archaeologist theorist of his generation. He was Librarian to the Royal Anthropological Institute beginning in 1925, held the honor of being appointed the first Abercomby Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at Edinburgh from 1927 to 1946 and Director of Archaeology at the University of London prior to his death.

Without Professor Childe, the basis of our knowledge of Old World archaeology would never have been written. He traveled throughout Greece, Central Europe and the Balkans studying the literature. From this trip came The Dawn of European Civilization which shows how the elements of Near Eastern and Mediterranean civilization moved upward to the rest of the continent. Another one of his more famous works is Man Makes Himself in which he illustrates how the Neolithic and urban revolutions had their impact upon mankind. Vere Gordon Childe was a very accomplished man and he laid the foundation of the theory and methodology of archaeology in the Old World.

Childe is author of numerous educational texts including:

The Dawn of European Civilization (1925)

Man Makes Himself (1951)

What Happened in History (1942)

Progress and Archaeology (1944)

V. Gordon Childe died from a fall off a cliff near Sydney, Australia on October 19, 1957. He had just retired from University of London and had returned to Australia to write another book, a book that was never written.

References:

Biography Vere Gordon Childe

American Antiquity Vol XXIV [1,1958] page 82

Written by: Students in an Introduction to Anthropology Class, Minnesota State University, Mankato, Minnesota 2000