Portal:University of Oxford/Selected biography/64

V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957) was an Australian archaeologist and philologist who specialized in the study of European prehistory. He wrote many influential books and was an early proponent of culture-historical archaeology and Marxist archaeology. He studied Classics at the University of Sydney and Classical archaeology at The Queen's College, Oxford, where his involvement with the socialist movement prevented him from working in academia on his return to Australia. Emigrating to London in 1921, he continued his research into European prehistory, introducing the concept of an archaeological culture into British archaeology. He was the Abercromby Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh (1927–46), overseeing excavation of the unique Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae and the chambered tomb of Maeshowe, both in Orkney, Scotland. After serving as director of the Institute of Archaeology (1947–57), he returned to Australia and committed suicide. He is widely regarded as one of the most important archaeologists and prehistorians of his generation, and was renowned for his emphasis on revolutionary technological and economic developments in human society. (Full article...)