V. Gordon Childe

Vere Gordon Childe was an Australian archaeologist who specialised in the study of European prehistory. He was the first exponent of Marxist archaeology in the Western world. In retirement, he returned to Australia’s Blue Mountains, where he committed suicide. He died in Sydney in 1998, aged 89.

About V. Gordon Childe in brief

Vere Gordon Childe was an Australian archaeologist who specialised in the study of European prehistory. He was the first exponent of Marxist archaeology in the Western world. Born in Sydney to a middle-class English migrant family, Childe studied classics at the University of Sydney before moving to England to study classical archaeology at Oxford. Emigrating to London in 1921, he became librarian of the Royal Anthropological Institute and journeyed across Europe to pursue his research. With Stuart Piggott and Grahame Clark he co-founded The Prehistoric Society in 1934, becoming its first president. He became known as the \”great synthesizer\” for his work integrating regional research with a broader picture of Near Eastern and European pre history. In retirement, he returned to Australia’s Blue Mountains, where he committed suicide. He wrote twenty-six books during his career, including several on the Neolithic Revolution and the Urban Revolution, reflecting the influence of Marxist ideas concerning societal development. His beliefs resulted in him being legally barred from entering the United States, despite receiving repeated invitations to lecture there. Although many of his interpretations have since been discredited, he remains widely respected among archaeologists. He died in Sydney in 1998, aged 89. He is buried in the Wentworth Falls Cemetery in the Blue Mountains of NSW, with his wife, Mary Ellen Latchford, and their five children. He had five children with his second wife, Harriet Eliza, who had moved to Australia from England as a child.

In 1910, his mother died; his father remarried and they had a son, Stephen. Stephen was an Anglican priest, ordained into the Church of England in 1867 after gaining a BA from Cambridge. In 1871, in 1871 he married Mary Ellen, with whom he had 5 children. In 1886 Stephen married Harriet, an Englishwoman from a wealthy background who had move to Australia as aChild. In 1907, he began attending the North Sydney Grammar School, gaining his Junior Matriculation in 1907. In 1909, he studied French, Greek, ancient history, trigonometry, algebra, and trigonology, achieving good marks in all subjects, but he was bullied because of his physical appearance and unathletic physique. In 1912, he moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, to work as the Abercromby Professor of Archaeology. He oversaw the excavation of archaeological sites in Scotland and Northern Ireland, focusing on the society of Neolithic Orkney by excavating the settlement of Skara Brae and the chambered tombs of Maeshowe and Quoyness. Remaining a committed socialist, he embraced Marxism, and—rejecting culture-historical approaches—used Marxist ideas such as historical materialism as an interpretative framework for archaeological data. He visited the Soviet Union and visited the country on several occasions, although he grew sceptical of Soviet foreign policy following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. In 1957 he became a sympathiser with the Soviet Republic.

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