Vere Gordon Childe

Vere Gordon Childe 1892-1957, British archaeologist, b. Australia. An Oxford graduate, he taught at the Univ. of Edinburgh (1927-46) and the Univ. of London (1946-56). He gained renown for his monumental synthesis of European prehistory, The Dawn of European Civilization (1925, 6th ed. 1957), and The Prehistory of European Society (1958). His studies in Asian archaeology led him to advance the concepts of the agricultural and urban revolutions in New Light on the Most Ancient East (1929, rev. ed. 1953). His interpretation of human history is put forth in two popular works, Man Makes Himself (1937, rev. ed. 1951) and What Happened in History (1942).

Childe, Vere Gordon (1892–1957) Born in Australia, Childe became professor successively in the Universities of Edinburgh and London, and was a leading figure in mid-twentieth-century archaeology. Known for his Marxist emphasis on the importance of the economy, Childe nevertheless also stressed the importance of society and culture, rather than artefacts. He was a great popularizer of archaeology, particularly through his well-written comparative accounts of human prehistory, such as Man Makes Himself (1956).