Gordon Childe
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Vere Gordon Childe (14 April 189219 October 1957) was an Australian archaeologist who specialised in the study of European prehistory. He spent most of his life in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, working as an academic for the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...
and then the Institute of Archaeology,
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
. He wrote twenty-six books during his career. Initially an early proponent of culture-historical archaeology, he later became the first exponent of
Marxist archaeology Marxist archaeology is an archaeological theory that interprets archaeological information using the framework of dialectical materialism, which is often short-handed as Marxism. Although neither Karl Marx nor Friedrich Engels specifically an ...
in the Western world. Born in
Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
to a middle-class English migrant family, Childe studied
classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...
at the
University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...
before moving to England to study classical archaeology at the
University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
. There, he embraced the
socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
movement and campaigned against the
First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, viewing it as a conflict waged by competing
imperialist Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power ( diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism fo ...
s to the detriment of Europe's working class. Returning to Australia in 1917, he was prevented from working in academia because of his socialist activism. Instead, he worked for the Labor Party as the private secretary of the politician John Storey. Growing critical of Labor, he wrote an analysis of their policies and joined the radical labour organisation
Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are nicknamed "Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago, United States in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology combines general unionism with indu ...
. Emigrating to London in 1921, he became librarian of the
Royal Anthropological Institute The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...
and journeyed across Europe to pursue his research into the continent's prehistory, publishing his findings in academic papers and books. In doing so, he introduced the continental European concept of an
archaeological culture An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...
—the idea that a recurring assemblage of artefacts demarcates a distinct cultural group—to the British archaeological community. From 1927 to 1946, he worked as the Abercromby Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, and then from 1947 to 1957 as the director of the Institute of Archaeology, London. During this period he oversaw the excavation of archaeological sites in Scotland and Northern Ireland, focusing on the society of
Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
Orkney Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland, ...
by excavating the settlement of
Skara Brae Skara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill in the parish of Sandwick, Orkney, Sandwick, on the west coast of Mainland, Orkney, Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. It consiste ...
and the
chambered tomb A chambered cairn is a burial monument, usually constructed during the Neolithic British Isles, Neolithic, consisting of a sizeable (usually stone) chamber around and over which a cairn of stones was constructed. Some chambered cairns are also pas ...
s of Maeshowe and Quoyness. In these decades he published prolifically, producing excavation reports, journal articles, and books. With
Stuart Piggott Stuart Ernest Piggott, (28 May 1910 – 23 September 1996) was a British archaeologist, best known for his work on prehistoric Wessex. Early life Piggott was born in Petersfield, Hampshire, the son of G. H. O. Piggott, and was educated ...
and Grahame Clark he co-founded The Prehistoric Society in 1934, becoming its first president. Remaining a committed socialist, he embraced
Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
, and—rejecting culture-historical approaches—used Marxist ideas such as
historical materialism Historical materialism is Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx located historical change in the rise of Class society, class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. Karl Marx stated that Productive forces, techno ...
as an interpretative framework for archaeological data. He became a sympathiser with the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
and visited the country on several occasions, although he grew sceptical of Soviet foreign policy following the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 4 November 1956; ), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the policies caused by ...
. His beliefs resulted in him being legally barred from entering the United States, despite receiving repeated invitations to lecture there. Upon retirement, he returned to Australia's Blue Mountains, where he committed suicide. One of the best-known and most widely cited archaeologists of the twentieth century, Childe became known as the "great synthesizer" for his work integrating regional research with a broader picture of Near Eastern and European prehistory. He was also renowned for his emphasis on the role of revolutionary technological and economic developments in human society, such as the
Neolithic Revolution The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the First Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period in Afro-Eurasia from a lifestyle of hunter-gatherer, hunting and gathering to one of a ...
and the Urban Revolution, reflecting the influence of Marxist ideas concerning societal development. Although many of his interpretations have since been discredited, he remains widely respected among archaeologists.


Early life


Childhood: 1892–1910

Childe was born on 14 April 1892 in
Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
. He was the only surviving child of the Reverend Stephen Henry Childe (1844–1923) and Harriet Eliza Childe, née Gordon (1853–1910), a middle-class couple of English descent. The son of an
Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
priest, Stephen Childe was ordained into the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
in 1867 after gaining a BA from the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
. Becoming a teacher, in 1871 he married Mary Ellen Latchford, with whom he had five children. They moved to Australia in 1878, where Mary died. On 22 November 1886 Stephen married Harriet Gordon, an Englishwoman from a wealthy background who had moved to Australia as a child. Her father was Alexander Gordon. Gordon Childe was raised alongside five half-siblings at his father's palatial country house, the Chalet Fontenelle, in the township of
Wentworth Falls Wentworth Falls (Postcodes in Australia, postcode: 2782) is a town in the Blue Mountains (New South Wales), Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, situated approximately west of the Sydney central business district, and about east of Katoo ...
in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Rev. Childe worked as the minister for St. Thomas' Parish, but proved unpopular, arguing with his congregation and taking unscheduled holidays. A sickly child, Gordon Childe was educated at home for several years, before receiving a private-school education in
North Sydney North Sydney is a suburb and commercial district on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. And is the administrative centre for the local government area of North Sydney Council. History The Indigenous people on the s ...
. In 1907, he began attending Sydney Church of England Grammar School, gaining his Junior Matriculation in 1909 and Senior Matriculation in 1910. At school he studied ancient history, French, Greek, Latin, geometry, algebra, and trigonometry, achieving good marks in all subjects, but he was bullied because of his physical appearance and unathletic physique. In July 1910 his mother died; his father soon remarried. Childe's relationship with his father was strained, particularly following his mother's death, and they disagreed on religion and politics: the Reverend was a devout Christian and
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
while his son was an
atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
and
socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
.


University in Sydney and Oxford: 1911–1917

Childe studied for a degree in
classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...
at the University of Sydney in 1911; although focusing on written sources, he first came across classical archaeology through the work of the archaeologists
Heinrich Schliemann Johann Ludwig Heinrich Julius Schliemann (; 6 January 1822 – 26 December 1890) was a German businessman and an influential amateur archaeologist. He was an advocate of the historicity of places mentioned in the works of Homer and an archaeolo ...
and
Arthur Evans Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. The first excavations at the Minoan palace of Knossos on the List of islands of Greece, Gree ...
. At university, he became an active member of the debating society, at one point arguing that "socialism is desirable". Increasingly interested in socialism, he read the works of
Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
and
Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.
G. W. F. Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...
, whose
dialectics Dialectic (; ), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the ...
heavily influenced
Marxist theory Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew f ...
. At university, he became a great friend of fellow undergraduate and future judge and politician Herbert Vere Evatt, with whom he remained in lifelong contact. Ending his studies in 1913, Childe graduated the following year with various honours and prizes, including Professor Francis Anderson's prize for philosophy. Wishing to continue his education, he gained a £200 Cooper Graduate Scholarship in Classics, allowing him to pay the tuition fees at Queen's College, part of the
University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
, England. He set sail for Britain aboard the SS ''Orsova'' in August 1914, shortly after the outbreak of
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. At Queen's, Childe was entered for a diploma in classical archaeology followed by a Literae Humaniores degree, although he never completed the former. While there, he studied under John Beazley and Arthur Evans, the latter being Childe's supervisor. In 1915, he published his first
academic paper Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes Research, academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or Thesis, theses. The part of academic written output that is n ...
, "On the Date and Origin of Minyan Ware", in the '' Journal of Hellenic Studies'', and the following year produced his B.Litt. thesis, "The Influence of Indo-Europeans in Prehistoric Greece", displaying his interest in combining philological and archaeological evidence. At Oxford he became actively involved with the socialist movement, antagonising the conservative university authorities. Becoming a noted member of the left-wing
reformist Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution. Within the socialist movement, ref ...
Oxford University Fabian Society, he was there in 1915 when it changed its name to the Oxford University Socialist Society, following a split from the
Fabian Society The Fabian Society () is a History of the socialist movement in the United Kingdom, British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in ...
. His best friend and flatmate was Rajani Palme Dutt, a fervent socialist and Marxist. The pair often got drunk and tested each other's knowledge about classical history late at night. With Britain in the midst of World War I, many British-based socialists refused to enlist in the military despite the government-mandated conscription. They believed the ruling classes of Europe's
imperialist Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power ( diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism fo ...
nations were waging the war for their own interests at the expense of the working classes; these socialists thought
class war Class War is an anarchist group and newspaper established by Ian Bone and others in 1983 in the United Kingdom. An incarnation of Class War was briefly registered as a political party for the purposes of fighting the 2015 United Kingdom gener ...
was the only conflict they should be concerned with. Dutt was imprisoned for refusing to fight, and Childe campaigned for the release of both him and other socialists and pacifist
conscientious objectors A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or freedom of religion, religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for ...
. Childe was never required to enlist in the military, most likely due to his poor health and eyesight. His anti-war sentiments concerned the authorities; the intelligence agency
MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...
opening a file on him, his mail was intercepted, and he was kept under observation.


Early career in Australia: 1918–1921

Childe returned to Australia in August 1917. As a known socialist agitator, he was placed under surveillance by the security services, who intercepted his mail. In 1918 he became senior resident tutor at St Andrew's College, Sydney University, joining Sydney's socialist and anti-conscription movement. In Easter 1918 he spoke at the Third Inter-State Peace Conference, an event organised by the Australian Union of Democratic Control for the Avoidance of War, a group opposed to Prime Minister
Billy Hughes William Morris Hughes (25 September 1862 – 28 October 1952) was an Australian politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923. He led the nation during World War I, and his influence on national politics s ...
's plans to introduce conscription. The conference had a prominent socialist emphasis; its report argued that the best hope to end international war was the "abolition of the Capitalist System". News of Childe's participation reached the Principal of St Andrew's College, who forced Childe to resign despite much opposition from staff. Staff members secured him work as a tutor in ancient history in the Department of Tutorial Classes, but the university chancellor William Cullen feared that he would promote socialism to students and fired him. The leftist community condemned this as an infringement of Childe's
civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...
, and the centre-left politicians William McKell and T.J. Smith raised the issue in the
Parliament of Australia The Parliament of Australia (officially the Parliament of the Commonwealth and also known as the Federal Parliament) is the federal legislature of Australia. It consists of three elements: the Monarchy of Australia, monarch of Australia (repr ...
. Moving to Maryborough, Queensland, in October 1918, Childe took up employment teaching Latin at the Maryborough Boys Grammar School, where his students included P. R. Stephensen. Here, too, his political affiliations became known, and he was subject to an opposition campaign from local conservative groups and the ''Maryborough Chronicle'', resulting in abuse from some pupils. He soon resigned. Realising he would be barred from an academic career by the university authorities, Childe sought employment within the leftist movement. In August 1919, he became private secretary and speech writer to the politician John Storey, a prominent member of the centre-left Labor Party then in opposition to New South Wales' Nationalist Party government. Representing the Sydney suburb of Balmain on the
New South Wales Legislative Assembly The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament House ...
, Storey became state premier in 1920 when Labor achieved electoral victory. Working within the Labor Party allowed Childe greater insight into its workings; the deeper his involvement, the more he became critical of Labor, believing that once in political office they betrayed their socialist ideals and moved to a centrist, pro-capitalist stance. He joined the radical leftist
Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are nicknamed "Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago, United States in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology combines general unionism with indu ...
, which at the time was banned in Australia. In 1921 Storey sent Childe to London to keep the British press updated about developments in New South Wales, but Storey died in December and an ensuing New South Wales election restored a Nationalist government under George Fuller's premiership. Fuller thought Childe's job unnecessary, and in early 1922 terminated his employment.


London and early books: 1922–1926

Unable to find an academic job in Australia, Childe remained in Britain, renting a room in
Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...
,
Central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning the City of London and several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local gove ...
, and spending much time studying at the
British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
and the
Royal Anthropological Institute The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...
library. An active member of London's socialist movement, he associated with leftists at the 1917 Club in Gerrard Street,
Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...
. He befriended members of the Marxist
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...
(CPGB) and contributed to their publication, '' Labour Monthly'', but had not yet openly embraced Marxism. Having earned a good reputation as a prehistorian, he was invited to other parts of Europe to study prehistoric artefacts. In 1922 he travelled to
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
to examine unpublished material about the painted Neolithic pottery from Schipenitz,
Bukovina Bukovina or ; ; ; ; , ; see also other languages. is a historical region at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe. It is located on the northern slopes of the central Eastern Carpathians and the adjoining plains, today divided betwe ...
, held in the Prehistoric Department of the
Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...
; he published his findings in the 1923 volume of the '' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute''. Childe used this excursion to visit museums in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, bringing them to the attention of British archaeologists in a 1922 article in ''
Man A man is an adult male human. Before adulthood, a male child or adolescent is referred to as a boy. Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromosome from the f ...
''. After returning to London, in 1922 Childe became a private secretary for three Members of Parliament, including John Hope Simpson and Frank Gray, both members of the centre-left
Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...
. Supplementing this income, Childe worked as a translator for the publishers Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. and occasionally lectured in prehistory at the
London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...
. In 1923 the London Labour Company published his first book, ''How Labour Governs''. Examining the Australian Labor Party and its connections to the
Australian labour movement The Australian labour movement began in the early 19th century and since the late 19th century has included industrial (Australian unions) and political wings (Australian Labor Party). Trade unions in Australia may be formed on the basis of cra ...
, it reflects Childe's disillusionment with the party, arguing that once elected, its politicians abandoned their socialist ideals in favour of personal comfort. Childe's biographer Sally Green noted that ''How Labour Governs'' was of particular significance at the time because it was published just as the British Labour Party was emerging as a major player in British politics, threatening the two-party dominance of the
Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...
and Liberals; in 1923 Labour formed their first government. Childe planned a sequel expanding on his ideas, but it was never published. In May 1923 he visited the museums in
Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...
,
Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...
, and
Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...
to study their prehistoric artefact collections; that year he became a member of the Royal Anthropological Institute. In 1925, he became the institute's librarian, one of the only archaeological jobs available in Britain, through which he began cementing connections with scholars across Europe. His job made him well known in Britain's small archaeological community; he developed a great friendship with O. G. S. Crawford, the archaeological officer to the
Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...
, influencing Crawford's move toward socialism and Marxism. In 1925, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co published Childe's second book, ''The Dawn of European Civilisation'', in which he synthesised the data about European prehistory that he had been exploring for several years. An important work, it was released when there were few professional archaeologists across Europe and most museums focused on their locality; ''The Dawn'' was a rare example that looked at the larger picture across the continent. Its importance was also due to the fact that it introduced the concept of the
archaeological culture An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...
into Britain from continental scholarship, thereby aiding in the development of culture-historical archaeology. Childe later said the book "aimed at distilling from archaeological remains a preliterate substitute for the conventional politico-military history with cultures, instead of statesmen, as actors, and migrations in place of battles". In 1926 he published a successor, ''The Aryans: A Study of Indo-European Origins'', exploring the theory that civilisation diffused northward and westward into Europe from the Near East via an Indo-European linguistic group known as the
Aryans ''Aryan'' (), or ''Arya'' (borrowed from Sanskrit ''ārya''),Oxford English Dictionary Online 2024, s.v. ''Aryan'' (adj. & n.); ''Arya'' (n.)''.'' is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood i ...
; with the ensuing racial use of the term "Aryan" by the German
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
, Childe avoided mention of the book. In these works, Childe accepted a moderate version of diffusionism, the idea that cultural developments diffuse from one place to others, rather than being independently developed in many places. In contrast to the hyper-diffusionism of
Grafton Elliot Smith Sir Grafton Elliot Smith (15 August 1871 – 1 January 1937) was an Australian-British anatomist, Egyptologist and a proponent of the hyperdiffusionist view of prehistory. He believed in the idea that cultural innovations occur only once and ...
, Childe suggested that although most cultural traits spread from one society to another, it was possible for the same traits to develop independently in different places.


Later life


Abercromby Professor of Archaeology: 1927–1946

In 1927, the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...
offered Childe the post of Abercromby Professor of Archaeology, a new position established in the bequest of the prehistorian Lord Abercromby. Although sad to leave London, Childe took the job, moving to
Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
in September 1927. Aged 35, Childe became the "only academic prehistorian in a teaching post in Scotland". Many Scottish archaeologists disliked Childe, regarding him as an outsider with no specialism in Scottish prehistory; he wrote to a friend that "I live here in an atmosphere of hatred and envy". He nevertheless made friends in Edinburgh, including archaeologists like W. Lindsay Scott, Alexander Curle, J. G. Callender, and Walter Grant, as well as non-archaeologists like the physicist Charles Galton Darwin, becoming godfather to Darwin's youngest son. Initially lodging at Liberton, he moved into the semi-residential Hotel de Vere on Eglinton Crescent. At Edinburgh University, Childe focused on research rather than teaching. He was reportedly kind to his students but had difficulty talking to large audiences; many students were confused that his BSc degree course in archaeology was structured counter-chronologically, dealing with the more recent
Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
first before progressing backward to the
Palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
. Founding the Edinburgh League of Prehistorians, he took his more enthusiastic students on excavations and invited guest lecturers to visit. An early proponent of
experimental archaeology Experimental archaeology (also called experiment archaeology) is a field of study which attempts to generate and test archaeological Hypothesis, hypotheses, usually by replicating or approximating the feasibility of ancient cultures performing v ...
, he involved his students in his experiments; in 1937 he used this method to investigate the vitrification process evident at several Iron Age forts in northern Britain. Childe regularly travelled to London to visit friends, among whom was
Stuart Piggott Stuart Ernest Piggott, (28 May 1910 – 23 September 1996) was a British archaeologist, best known for his work on prehistoric Wessex. Early life Piggott was born in Petersfield, Hampshire, the son of G. H. O. Piggott, and was educated ...
, another influential British archaeologist who succeeded Childe as Edinburgh's Abercromby Professor. Another friend was Grahame Clark, whom Childe befriended and encouraged in his research. The trio were elected onto the committee of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia. At Clark's suggestion, in 1935 they used their influence to convert it into a nationwide organisation, the Prehistoric Society, of which Childe was elected president. Membership of the group grew rapidly; in 1935 it had 353 members and by 1938 it had 668. Childe spent much time in continental Europe and attended many conferences there, having learned several European languages. In 1935, he first visited the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, spending 12 days in
Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
and
Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
; impressed with the
socialist state A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. This article is about states that refer to themselves as socialist states, and not specifically ...
, he was particularly interested in the social role of Soviet archaeology. Returning to Britain, he became a vocal Soviet sympathiser and avidly read the CPGB's '' Daily Worker'', although was heavily critical of certain Soviet policies, particularly the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...
with
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
. His socialist convictions led to an early denunciation of European
fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...
, and he was outraged by the Nazi co-option of prehistoric archaeology to glorify their own conceptions of an Aryan racial heritage. Supportive of the British government's decision to fight the fascist powers in the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, he thought it probable that he was on a Nazi blacklist and made the decision to drown himself in a canal should the Nazis conquer Britain. Though opposing fascist Germany and Italy, he also criticised the imperialist, capitalist governments of the United Kingdom and United States: he repeatedly described the latter as being full of "loathsome fascist hyenas". This did not prevent him from visiting the U.S. In 1936 he addressed a Conference of Arts and Sciences marking the tercentenary of
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
; there, the university awarded him an honorary
Doctor of Letters Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or '), also termed Doctor of Literature in some countries, is a terminal degree in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. In the United States, at universities such as Drew University, the degree ...
degree. He returned in 1939, lecturing at Harvard, the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, and the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
.


Excavations

Childe's university position meant he was obliged to undertake archaeological excavations, something he loathed and believed he did poorly. Students agreed, but recognised his "genius for interpreting evidence". Unlike many contemporaries, he was scrupulous with writing up and publishing his findings, producing almost annual reports for the '' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland'' and, unusually, ensuring that he acknowledged the help of every digger. His best-known excavation was undertaken from 1928 to 1930 at
Skara Brae Skara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill in the parish of Sandwick, Orkney, Sandwick, on the west coast of Mainland, Orkney, Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. It consiste ...
in the
Orkney Islands Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland ...
. Having uncovered a well-preserved Neolithic village, in 1931 he published the excavation results in a book titled ''Skara Brae''. He made an error of interpretation, erroneously attributing the site to the Iron Age. During the excavation, Childe got on particularly well with the locals; for them, he was "every inch the professor" because of his eccentric appearance and habits. In 1932, Childe, collaborating with the
anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
C. Daryll Forde, excavated two Iron Age
hillfort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...
s at Earn's Hugh on the
Berwickshire Berwickshire (; ) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in south-eastern Scotland, on the English border. The county takes its name from Berwick-upon-Tweed, its original county town, which was part of Scotland at the ...
coast, while in June 1935 he excavated a
promontory fort A promontory fort is a fortification, defensive structure located above a steep cliff, often only connected to the mainland by a small neck of land, thus using the topography to reduce the Rampart (fortification), ramparts needed. The oldest kno ...
at Larriban near to Knocksoghey in Northern Ireland. Together with Wallace Thorneycroft, another Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Childe excavated two vitrified Iron Age forts in Scotland, at Finavon,
Angus Angus may refer to: *Angus, Scotland, a council area of Scotland, and formerly a province, sheriffdom, county and district of Scotland * Angus, Canada, a community in Essa, Ontario Animals * Angus cattle, various breeds of beef cattle Media * ...
(1933–34) and at Rahoy, Argyllshire (1936–37). In 1938, he and Walter Grant oversaw excavations at the Neolithic settlement of Rinyo; their investigation ceased during the Second World War, but resumed in 1946.


Publications

Childe continued writing and publishing books on archaeology, beginning with a series of works following on from ''The Dawn of European Civilisation'' and ''The Aryans'' by compiling and synthesising data from across Europe. First was ''The Most Ancient Near East'' (1928), which assembled information from across Mesopotamia and India, setting a background from which the spread of farming and other technologies into Europe could be understood. This was followed by ''The Danube in Prehistory'' (1929) which examined the archaeology along the
Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...
river, recognising it as the natural boundary dividing the Near East from Europe; Childe believed it was via the Danube that new technologies travelled westward. Although Childe had used culture-historical approaches in earlier publications, ''The Danube in Prehistory'' was his first publication to provide a specific definition of the concept of an
archaeological culture An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...
, revolutionising the theoretical approach of British archaeology. Childe's next book, ''The Bronze Age'' (1930), dealt with the
Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
in Europe, and displayed his increasing adoption of Marxist theory as a means of understanding how society functioned and changed. He believed metal was the first indispensable article of commerce, and that metal-smiths were therefore full-time professionals who lived off the
social surplus In mainstream economics, economic surplus, also known as total welfare or total social welfare or Marshallian surplus (after Alfred Marshall), is either of two related quantities: * Consumer surplus, or consumers' surplus, is the monetary gain ...
. In 1933, Childe travelled to Asia, visiting Iraq—a place he thought "great fun"—and India, which he felt was "detestable" due to the hot weather and extreme poverty. Touring archaeological sites in the two countries, he opined that much of what he had written in ''The Most Ancient Near East'' was outdated, going on to produce ''New Light on the Most Ancient Near East'' (1935), in which he applied his Marxist-influenced ideas about the economy to his conclusions. After publishing ''Prehistory of Scotland'' (1935), Childe produced one of the defining books of his career, ''Man Makes Himself'' (1936). Influenced by Marxist views of history, Childe argued that the usual distinction between (pre-literate) prehistory and (literate) history was a
false dichotomy A false dilemma, also referred to as false dichotomy or false binary, is an informal fallacy based on a premise that erroneously limits what options are available. The source of the fallacy lies not in an invalid form of inference but in a false ...
and human society has progressed through a series of technological, economic, and social revolutions. These included the
Neolithic Revolution The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the First Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period in Afro-Eurasia from a lifestyle of hunter-gatherer, hunting and gathering to one of a ...
, when hunter-gatherers began settling in permanent farming communities, through to the Urban Revolution, when society moved from small towns to the first cities, and up to more recent times, when the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...
changed the nature of production. After the outbreak of the Second World War, Childe was unable to travel across Europe, instead focusing on writing ''Prehistoric Communities of the British Isles'' (1940). Childe's pessimism regarding the war's outcome led him to believe that "European civilization—capitalist and Stalinist alike—was irrevocably headed for a Dark Age". In this state of mind he produced a sequel to ''Man Makes Himself'' titled ''What Happened in History'' (1942), an account of human history from the Palaeolithic through to the fall of the
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...
. Although
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
offered to publish the work, he released it through
Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
because they could sell it at a cheaper price, something he believed pivotal in providing knowledge for those he called "the masses". This was followed by two short works, ''Progress and Archaeology'' (1944) and ''The Story of Tools'' (1944), the latter an explicitly Marxist text written for the Young Communist League.


Institute of Archaeology, London: 1946–1956

In 1946, Childe left Edinburgh to take up the position as director and professor of European prehistory at the Institute of Archaeology (IOA) in London. Anxious to return to London, he had kept silent over his disapproval of government policies so he would not be prevented from getting the job. He took up residence in the Isokon building near to
Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, England, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, located mainly in the London Borough of Camden, with a small part in the London Borough of Barnet. It borders Highgate and Golders Green to the north, Belsiz ...
. Located in St John's Lodge in the Inner Circle of
Regent's Park Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden, Borough of Camden (and historical ...
, the IOA was founded in 1937, largely by the archaeologist
Mortimer Wheeler Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, CH Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire, CIE Military Cross, MC Territorial Decoration, TD (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeolo ...
, but until 1946 relied primarily on volunteer lecturers. Childe's relationship with the conservative Wheeler was strained, for their personalities were very different; Wheeler was an extrovert who pursued the limelight, was an efficient administrator, and was intolerant of others' shortcomings, while Childe lacked administrative skill, and was tolerant of others. Childe was popular among the institute's students, who saw him as a kindly eccentric; they commissioned a bust of Childe from Marjorie Maitland Howard. His lecturing was nevertheless considered poor, as he often mumbled and walked into an adjacent room to find something while continuing to talk. He further confused his students by referring to the socialist states of eastern Europe by their full official titles, and by referring to towns by their Slavonic names rather than the names with which they were better known in English. He was deemed better at giving tutorials and seminars, where he devoted more time to interacting with his students. As Director, Childe was not obliged to excavate, though he did undertake projects at the Orkney Neolithic burial tombs of Quoyness (1951) and Maes Howe (1954–55). In 1949, he and Crawford resigned as fellows of the Society of Antiquaries. They did so to protest the selection of James Mann—keeper of the
Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic citadel and castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamle ...
's armouries—as the society's president, believing Wheeler (a professional archaeologist) was a better choice. Childe joined the editorial board of the periodical '' Past & Present'', founded by Marxist historians in 1952. During the early 1950s, he also became a board member for '' The Modern Quarterly''—later ''The Marxist Quarterly''—working alongside the board's chairman Rajani Palme Dutt, his best friend and flatmate from his Oxford days. He authored occasional articles for Palme Dutt's socialist journal, the '' Labour Monthly'', but disagreed with him over the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 4 November 1956; ), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the policies caused by ...
; Palme Dutt defended the Soviet Union's decision to quash the revolution using military force, but Childe, like many Western socialists, strongly opposed it. The event made Childe abandon faith in the Soviet leadership, but not in socialism or Marxism. He retained a love of the Soviet Union, having visiting on multiple occasions; he was also involved with a CPGB satellite body, the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR, and served as president of its National History and Archaeology Section from the early 1950s until his death. In April 1956, Childe was awarded the Gold Medal of the Society of Antiquaries for his services to archaeology. He was invited to lecture in the United States on multiple occasions, by Robert Braidwood, William Duncan Strong, and Leslie White, but the U.S. State Department barred him from entering the country due to his Marxist beliefs. While working at the institute, Childe continued writing and publishing books dealing with archaeology. ''History'' (1947) promoted a Marxist view of the past and reaffirmed Childe's belief that prehistory and literate history must be viewed together, while ''Prehistoric Migrations'' (1950) displayed his views on moderate diffusionism. In 1946 he also published a paper in the '' Southwestern Journal of Anthropology''. This was "Archaeology and Anthropology", which argued that the disciplines of archaeology and anthropology should be used in tandem, an approach that would be widely accepted in the decades following his death.


Retirement and death: 1956–1957

In mid-1956, Childe retired as IOA director a year prematurely. European archaeology had rapidly expanded during the 1950s, leading to increasing specialisation and making the synthesising that Childe was known for increasingly difficult. That year, the institute was moving to
Gordon Square Gordon Square is a public park square in Bloomsbury, London, England. It is part of the Bedford Estate and was designed as one of a pair with the nearby Tavistock Square. It is owned by the University of London. History and buildings The sq ...
, Bloomsbury, and Childe wanted to give his successor, W. F. Grimes, a fresh start in the new surroundings. To commemorate his achievements, the ''Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society'' published a ''Festschrift'' edition on the last day of his directorship containing contributions from friends and colleagues all over the world, something that touched Childe deeply. Upon his retirement, he told many friends he planned to return to Australia, visit his relatives, and commit suicide; he was terrified of becoming old, senile, and a burden on society, and suspected he had cancer. Subsequent commentators suggested that a core reason for his suicidal desires was a loss of faith in Marxism following the Hungarian Revolution and Nikita Khrushchev's On the Personality Cult and its Consequences, denouncement of Joseph Stalin, although Bruce Trigger dismissed this explanation, noting that while Childe was critical of Soviet foreign policy, he never saw the state and Marxism as synonymous. Sorting out his affairs, Childe donated most of his library and all of his estate to the institute. After a February 1957 holiday visiting archaeological sites in Gibraltar and Spain, he sailed to Australia, reaching Sydney on his 65th birthday. Here, the University of Sydney, which had once barred him from working there, awarded him an honorary degree. He travelled around the country for six months, visiting family members and old friends, but was unimpressed by Australian society, believing it reactionary, increasingly suburban, and poorly educated. Looking into Australian prehistory, he found it a profitable field for research, and lectured to archaeological and leftist groups on this and other topics, taking to Australian radio to criticise academic racism towards Indigenous Australians. Writing personal letters to many friends, he sent one to Grimes, requesting that it not be opened until 1968. In it, he described how he feared old age and stated his intention to take his own life, remarking that "life ends best when one is happy and strong". On 19 October 1957, Childe went to the area of Govett's Leap in Blackheath, New South Wales, Blackheath, an area of the Blue Mountains where he had grown up. Leaving his hat, spectacles, compass, pipe, and Mackintosh raincoat on the cliffs, he fell 1000 feet (300 m) to his death. A coroner ruled his death as accidental, but his death was recognised as suicide when his letter to Grimes was published in the 1980s. His remains were cremated at the Northern Suburbs Crematorium, and his name added to a small family plaque in the Crematorium Gardens. Following his death, an "unprecedented" level of tributes and memorials were issued by the archaeological community, all, according to Ruth Tringham, testifying to his status as Europe's "greatest prehistorian and a wonderful human being".


Archaeological theory

The biographer Sally Green noted that Childe's beliefs were "never dogmatic, always idiosyncratic" and "continually changing throughout his life". His archaeological theory, theoretical approach blended together
Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
, diffusionism, and Structural functionalism, functionalism. Childe was critical of the evolutionary archaeology dominant during the nineteenth century. He believed archaeologists who adhered to it placed a greater emphasis on artefacts than on the humans who had made them. Like most archaeologists in Western Europe and the United States at the time, Childe did not regard humans as naturally inventive or inclined to change; thus, he tended to perceive social change in terms of diffusion and migration rather than internal development or cultural evolution. During the decades in which Childe was working, most archaeologists adhered to the three-age system first developed by the Danish antiquarian Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. This system rested upon an evolutionary chronology that divided prehistory into the Stone Age,
Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
, and
Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
, but Childe highlighted that many of the world's societies were still effectively Stone Age in their technology. He nevertheless saw it as a useful model for analysing socio-economic development when combined with a Marxist framework. He therefore used technological criteria for dividing up prehistory into three ages, but instead used economic criteria for sub-dividing the Stone Age into the
Palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
and
Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
, rejecting the concept of the Mesolithic as useless. Informally, he adopted the division of past societies into the framework of "savagery", "barbarism", and "civilisation" that Engels had employed.


Culture-historical archaeology

In the early part of his career, Childe was a proponent of the Culture-historical archaeology, culture-historical approach to archaeology, coming to be seen as one of its "founders and chief exponents". Culture-historical archaeology revolved around the concept of "Archaeological culture, culture", which it had adopted from anthropology. This was "a major turning point in the history of the discipline", allowing archaeologists to look at the past through a spatial dynamic rather than a temporal one. Childe adopted the concept of "culture" from the German philologist and archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna, although this influence might have been mediated through Leon Kozłowski, a Polish archaeologist who had adopted Kossina's ideas and who had a close association with Childe. Trigger expressed the view that while adopting Kossina's basic concept, Childe displayed "no awareness" of the "racist connotations" Kossina had given it. Childe's adherence to the culture-historical model is apparent in three of his books—''The Dawn of European Civilisation'' (1925), ''The Aryans'' (1926) and ''The Most Ancient East'' (1928)—but in none of these does he define what he means by "culture". Only later, in ''The Danube in Prehistory'' (1929), did Childe give "culture" a specifically archaeological definition. In this book, he defined a "culture" as a set of "regularly associated traits" in the material culture—i.e. "pots, implements, ornaments, burial rites, house forms"—that recur across a given area. He said that in this respect a "culture" was the archaeological equivalent of a "people". Childe's use of the term was non-racial; he considered a "people" to be a social grouping, not a biological race. He opposed the equation of archaeological cultures with biological races—as various nationalists across Europe were doing at the time—and vociferously criticised Nazi uses of archaeology, arguing that the Jewish people were not a distinct biological race but a socio-cultural grouping. In 1935, he suggested that culture worked as a "living functioning organism" and emphasised the adaptive potential of material culture; in this he was influenced by anthropological Structural functionalism, functionalism. Childe accepted that archaeologists defined "cultures" based on a subjective selection of material criteria; this view was later widely adopted by archaeologists like Colin Renfrew. Later in his career, Childe tired of culture-historical archaeology. By the late 1940s he was questioning the utility of "culture" as an archaeological concept and thus the basic validity of the culture-historical approach. McNairn suggested that this was because the term "culture" had become popular across the social sciences in reference to all learned modes of behaviour, and not just material culture as Childe had done. By the 1940s, Childe was doubtful as to whether a certain archaeological assemblage or "culture" really reflected a social group who had other unifying traits, such as a shared language. In the 1950s, Childe was comparing the role culture-historical archaeology had among prehistorians to the place of the traditional politico-military approach among historians.


Marxist archaeology

Childe has typically been seen as a Marxist archaeologist, being the first archaeologist in the West to use Marxist theory in his work. Marxist archaeology emerged in the Soviet Union in 1929, when the archaeologist Vladislav Ravdonikas, Vladislav I. Ravdonikas published a report titled "For a Soviet History of Material Culture". Criticising the archaeological discipline as inherently bourgeois and therefore anti-socialist, Ravdonikas's report called for a pro-socialist, Marxist approach to archaeology as part of the academic reforms instituted under Joseph Stalin's rule. It was during the mid-1930s, around the time of his first visit to the Soviet Union, that Childe began to make explicit reference to Marxism in his work. Many archaeologists have been profoundly influenced by Marxism's socio-political ideas. As a Historical materialism, materialist philosophy, Marxism emphasises the idea that material things are more important than ideas, and that the social conditions of a given period are the result of the existing material conditions, or mode of production. Thus, a Marxist interpretation foregrounds the social context of any technological development or change. Marxist ideas also emphasise the biased nature of scholarship, each scholar having their own entrenched beliefs and class loyalties; Marxism thus argues that intellectuals cannot divorce their scholarly thinking from political action. Green said that Childe accepted "Marxist views on a model of the past" because they offer "a structural analysis of culture in terms of economy, sociology and ideology, and a principle for cultural change through economy". McNairn noted that Marxism was "a major intellectual force in Childe's thought", while Trigger said Childe identified with Marx's theories "both emotionally and intellectually". Childe said he used Marxist ideas when interpreting the past "because and in so far as it ''works''"; he criticised many fellow Marxists for treating the socio-political theory as a set of dogmas. Childe's Marxism often differed from the Marxism of his contemporaries, both because he made reference to the original texts of Hegel, Marx, and Engels rather than later interpretations and because he was selective in using their writings. McNairn considered Childe's Marxism "an individual interpretation" that differed from "popular or orthodox" Marxism; Trigger called him a "a creative Marxist thinker"; Gathercole thought that while Childe's "debt to Marx was quite evident", his "attitude to Marxism was at times ambivalent". The Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm later described Childe as "the most original English Marxist writer from the days of my youth". Aware that in the context of the Cold War his affiliation with Marxism could prove dangerous for him, Childe sought to make his Marxist ideas more palatable to his readership. In his archaeological writings, he sparingly made direct reference to Marx. There is a distinction in his published works from the latter part of his life between those that are explicitly Marxist and those in which Marxist ideas and influences are less obvious. Many of Childe's fellow British archaeologists did not take his adherence to Marxism seriously, regarding it as something which he did for shock value. Childe was influenced by Soviet archaeology but remained critical of it, disapproving of how the Soviet government encouraged the country's archaeologists to assume their conclusions before analysing their data. He was also critical of what he saw as the sloppy approach to Typology (archaeology), typology in Soviet archaeology. As a moderate diffusionist, Childe was heavily critical of the "Marrist" trend in Soviet archaeology, based on the theories of the Georgian philologist Nicholas Marr, which rejected diffusionism in favour of unilinear evolutionism. In his view, it "cannot be un-Marxian" to understand the spread of domesticated plants, animals, and ideas through diffusionism. Childe did not publicly air these criticisms of his Soviet colleagues, perhaps so as not to offend communist friends or to provide ammunition for right-wing archaeologists. Instead, he publicly praised the Soviet system of archaeology and heritage management, contrasting it favourably with Britain's because it encouraged collaboration rather than competition between archaeologists. After first visiting the country in 1935, he returned in 1945, 1953, and 1956, befriending many Soviet archaeologists, but shortly before his suicide sent a letter to the Soviet archaeological community saying he was "extremely disappointed" they had methodologically fallen behind Western Europe and North America. Other Marxists—such as George Derwent Thomson and Neil Faulkner (archaeologist), Neil Faulkner—argued that Childe's archaeological work was not truly Marxist because he failed to take into account class struggle as an instrument of social change, a core tenet of Marxist thought. While class struggle was not a factor Childe considered in his archaeological work, he accepted that historians and archaeologists typically interpreted the past through their own class interests, arguing that most of his contemporaries produced studies with an innate bourgeois agenda. Childe further diverged from orthodox Marxism by not employing
dialectics Dialectic (; ), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the ...
in his methodology. He also denied Marxism's ability to predict the future development of human society, and—unlike many other Marxists—did not consider humanity's Progress (history), progress into Communist society, pure communism inevitable, instead opining that society could fossilise or become extinct.


Neolithic and Urban Revolutions

Influenced by Marxism, Childe argued that society experienced widescale changes in relatively short periods of time, citing the Industrial Revolution as a modern example. This idea was absent from his earliest work; in studies like ''The Dawn of European Civilisation'' he talked of societal change as "transition" rather than "revolution". In writings from the early 1930s, such as ''New Light on the Most Ancient East'', he began to describe social change using the term "revolution", although had yet to fully develop these ideas. At this point, the term "revolution" had gained Marxist associations due to Russia's October Revolution of 1917. Childe introduced his ideas about "revolutions" in a 1935 presidential address to the Prehistoric Society. Presenting this concept as part of his functional-economic interpretation of the three-age system, he argued that a "
Neolithic Revolution The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the First Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period in Afro-Eurasia from a lifestyle of hunter-gatherer, hunting and gathering to one of a ...
" initiated the Neolithic era, and that other revolutions marked the start of the Bronze and Iron Ages. The following year, in ''Man Makes Himself'', he combined these Bronze and Iron Age Revolutions into a singular " Urban Revolution", which corresponded largely to the anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan's concept of "civilization". For Childe, the Neolithic Revolution was a period of radical change, in which humans—who were then hunter-gatherers—began cultivating plants and breeding animals for food, allowing for greater control of the food supply and population growth. He believed the Urban Revolution was largely caused by the development of bronze metallurgy, and in a 1950 paper proposed ten traits that he believed were present in the oldest cities: they were larger than earlier settlements, they contained full-time craft specialists, the surplus was collected together and given to a god or king, they witnessed monumental architecture, there was an unequal distribution of social surplus, writing was invented, the sciences developed, naturalistic art developed, trade with foreign areas increased, and the state organisation was based on residence rather than kinship. Childe believed the Urban Revolution had a negative side, in that it led to increased social stratification into classes and oppression of the majority by a power elite. Not all archaeologists adopted Childe's framework of understanding human societal development as a series of transformational "revolutions"; many believed the term "revolution" was misleading because the processes of agricultural and urban development were gradual transformations.


Influence on processual and post-processual archaeology

Through his work, Childe contributed to two of the major theoretical movements in Anglo-American archaeology that developed in the decades after his death, Processual archaeology, processualism and post-processualism. The former emerged in the late 1950s, emphasised the idea that archaeology should be a branch of anthropology, sought the discovery of universal laws about society, and believed that archaeology could ascertain objective information about the past. The latter emerged as a reaction to processualism in the late 1970s, rejecting the idea that archaeology had access to objective information about the past and emphasising the subjectivity of all interpretation. The processual archaeologist Colin Renfrew described Childe as "one of the fathers of processual thought" due to his "development of economic and social themes in prehistory", an idea echoed by Faulkner. Trigger argued that Childe's work foreshadowed processual thought in two ways: by emphasising the role of change in societal development, and by adhering to a strictly materialist view of the past. Both of these arose from Childe's Marxism. Despite this connection, most American processualists ignored Childe's work, seeing him as a Historical particularism, particularist who was irrelevant to their search for generalised laws of societal behaviour. In keeping with Marxist thought, Childe did not agree that such generalised laws exist, believing behaviour is not universal but conditioned by socio-economic factors. Peter Ucko, one of Childe's successors as director of the Institute of Archaeology, highlighted that Childe accepted the subjectivity of archaeological interpretation, something in stark contrast to the processualists' insistence that archaeological interpretation could be objective. As a result, Trigger thought Childe to be a "prototypical post-processual archaeologist".


Personal life

Childe's biographer Sally Green found no evidence that Childe ever had a serious intimate relationship; she assumed he was heterosexual because she found no evidence of same-sex attraction. Conversely, his student Don Brothwell thought him to be homosexual. He had many friends of both sexes, although he remained "awkward and uncouth, without any social graces". Despite his difficulties in relating to others, he enjoyed interacting and socialising with his students, often inviting them to dine with him. He was shy and often hid his personal feelings. Brothwell suggested that these personality traits may reflect undiagnosed Asperger syndrome. Childe believed the study of the past could offer guidance for how humans should act in the present and future. He was known for his Far-left politics, radical left-wing views, being a socialist from his undergraduate days. He sat on the committees of several left-wing groups, although avoided involvement in Marxist intellectual arguments within the Communist Party and—with the exception of ''How Labour Governs''—did not commit his non-archaeological opinions to print. Many of his political views are therefore evident only through comments made in private correspondence. Renfrew noted that Childe was liberal-minded on social issues, but thought that—although Childe deplored racism—he did not entirely escape the pervasive nineteenth-century view on distinct differences between different races. Trigger similarly observed racist elements in some of Childe's culture-historical writings, including the suggestion that Nordic race, Nordic peoples had a "superiority in physique", although Childe later disavowed these ideas. In a private letter, Childe wrote to the archaeologist Christopher Hawkes, he said Antisemitism, he disliked Jews. Childe was an atheist and critic of religion, viewing it as a false consciousness based in superstition that served the interests of dominant elites. In ''History'' (1947) he commented that "magic is a way of making people believe they are going to get what they want, whereas religion is a system for persuading them that they ought to want what they get". He nevertheless regarded Christianity as being superior over (what he regarded as) primitive religion, commenting that "Christianity as a religion of love surpasses all others in stimulating positive virtue". In a letter written during the 1930s, he said that "only in days of exceptional bad temper do I desire to hurt people's religious convictions". Childe was fond of driving cars, enjoying the "feeling of power" he got from them. He often told a story about how he had raced at high speed down Piccadilly, London, at three in the morning for the sheer enjoyment of it, only to be pulled over by a policeman. He loved practical jokes, and allegedly kept a halfpenny (British pre-decimal coin), halfpenny in his pocket to trick pickpockets. On one occasion he played a joke on the delegates at a Prehistoric Society conference by lecturing them on a theory that the Neolithic monument of Woodhenge had been constructed as an imitation of Stonehenge by a ''nouveau riche'' chieftain. Some audience members failed to realise he was being tongue in cheek. He could speak several European languages, having taught himself in early life when he was travelling across the continent. Childe's other hobbies included walking in the British hillsides, attending classical music concerts, and playing the card game contract bridge. He was fond of poetry; his favourite poet was John Keats, and his favourite poems were William Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" and Robert Browning's "A Grammarian's Funeral". He was not particularly interested in reading novels, but his favourite was D. H. Lawrence's ''Kangaroo (novel), Kangaroo'' (1923), a book echoing many of Childe's own feelings about Australia. He was a fan of good quality food and drink, and frequented restaurants. Known for his battered, tatty attire, Childe always wore his wide-brimmed black hat—purchased from a hatter in Jermyn Street, central London—as well as a tie, which was usually red, a colour chosen to symbolise his socialist beliefs. He regularly wore a black Mackintosh raincoat, often carrying it over his arm or draped over his shoulders like a cape. In summer he frequently wore shorts with socks, sock suspenders, and large boots.


Legacy and influence

On his death, Childe was praised by his colleague Stuart Piggott as "the greatest prehistorian in Britain and probably the world". The archaeologist Randall H. McGuire later described him as "probably the best known and most cited archaeologist of the twentieth century", an idea echoed by Bruce Trigger, while Barbara McNairn labelled him "one of the most outstanding and influential figures in the discipline". The archaeologist Andrew Sherratt described Childe as occupying "a crucial position in the history" of archaeology. Sherratt also noted that "Childe's output, by any standard, was massive". Over the course of his career, Childe published more than twenty books and around 240 scholarly articles. The archaeologist Brian Fagan described his books as "simple, well-written narratives" which became "archaeological canon between the 1930s and early 1960s". By 1956, he was cited as the most translated Australian author in history, having seen his books published in such languages as Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Sweden and Turkish. The archaeologists David Lewis-Williams and David Pearce considered Childe "probably the most written about" archaeologist in history, commenting that his books were still "required reading" for those in the discipline in 2005. As of 2024, the
University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...
named the Vere Gordon Childe Centre in his honour. Known as "the Great Synthesizer", Childe is primarily respected for developing a synthesis of European and Near Eastern prehistory at a time when most archaeologists focused on regional sites and sequences. Since his death, this framework has been heavily revised following the discovery of radiocarbon dating, his interpretations have been "largely rejected", and many of his conclusions about Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe have been found to be incorrect. Childe himself believed his primary contribution to archaeology was in his interpretative frameworks, an analysis supported by Alison Ravetz and Peter Gathercole. According to Sherratt: "What is of lasting value in his interpretations is the more detailed level of writing, concerned with the recognition of patterns in the material he described. It is these patterns which survive as classic problems of European prehistory, even when his explanations of them are recognised as inappropriate". Childe's theoretical work had been largely ignored in his lifetime, and remained forgotten in the decades after his death, although it would see a resurgence in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It remained best known in Latin America, where Marxism remained a core theoretical current among archaeologists throughout the latter 20th century. Despite his global influence, Childe's work was poorly understood in the United States, where his work on European prehistory never became well known. As a result, in the United States he erroneously gained the reputation of being a Near Eastern specialist and a founder of neo-evolutionism, alongside Julian Steward and Leslie White, despite the fact that his approach was "more subtle and nuanced" than theirs. Steward repeatedly misrepresented Childe as a unilinear evolutionist in his writings, perhaps as part of an attempt to distinguish his own "multilinear" evolutionary approach from the ideas of Marx and Engels. In contrast to this American neglect and misrepresentation, Trigger believed it was an American archaeologist, Robert McCormick Adams, Jr., who did the most to posthumously develop Childe's "most innovative ideas". Childe also had a small following of American archaeologists and anthropologists in the 1940s who wanted to bring back materialist and Marxist ideas into their research after years in which Franz Boas, Boasian particularism had been dominant within the discipline. In the U.S., his name was also referenced in the 2008 blockbuster film ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull''.


Academic conferences and publications

Following his death, several articles examining Childe's impact on archaeology were published. In 1980, Bruce Trigger's ''Gordon Childe: Revolutions in Archaeology'' appeared, which studied the influences that extended over Childe's archaeological thought; the same year saw the publication of Barbara McNairn's ''The Method and Theory of V. Gordon Childe'', examining his methodological and theoretical approaches to archaeology. The following year, Sally Green published ''Prehistorian: A Biography of V. Gordon Childe'', in which she described him as "the most eminent and influential scholar of European prehistory in the twentieth century". Peter Gathercole thought the work of Trigger, McNairn, and Green was "extremely important"; Tringham considered it all part of a "let's-get-to-know-Childe-better" movement. In July 1986, a colloquium devoted to Childe's work was held in Mexico City, marking the 50th anniversary of ''Man Makes Himselfs publication. In September 1990, the University of Queensland's Australian Studies Centre organised a centenary conference for Childe in Brisbane, with presentations examining both his scholarly and his socialist work. In May 1992, a conference marking his centenary was held at the UCL Institute of Archaeology in London, co-sponsored by the Institute and the Prehistoric Society, both organisations he had formerly headed. The conference proceedings were published in a 1994 volume edited by David R. Harris (geographer), David R. Harris, the Institute's director, entitled ''The Archaeology of V. Gordon Childe: Contemporary Perspectives''. Harris said the book sought to "demonstrate the dynamic qualities of Childe's thought, the breadth and depth of his scholarship, and the continuing relevance of his work to contemporary issues in archaeology". In 1995, another conference collection was published. Titled ''Childe and Australia: Archaeology, Politics and Ideas'', it was edited by Peter Gathercole, T. H. Irving, and Gregory Melleuish. Further papers appeared on the subject of Childe in ensuing years, looking at such subjects as his personal correspondences, and final resting place.


Selected publications


References


Footnotes


Bibliography

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Further reading

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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Childe, V. Gordon 1892 births 1957 suicides 20th-century Australian archaeologists Alumni of the Queen's College, Oxford Academics of the UCL Institute of Archaeology Academics of the University of Edinburgh Academics of the London School of Economics Australian archaeologists Australian atheists Australian librarians Australian philologists Australian Marxists Australian Marxist historians Industrial Workers of the World members Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin People associated with the University of Edinburgh School of History, Classics and Archaeology Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland People educated at Sydney Church of England Grammar School Scientists from Sydney Australian prehistorians Suicides by jumping in Australia Suicides in New South Wales Theorists on Western civilization University of Sydney alumni 20th-century philologists 1957 deaths Burials at Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens