Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn

Colin Renfrew (full name: Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn; born July 25, 1937 in Stockton -on-Tees ) is a British archaeologist, best known for his work on radiocarbon dating, Archäogenetik and protection against looting of archaeological sites is.

Life

Renfrew graduated in 1962, the St John's College, Cambridge. Already 1961-1963, he worked on the first season of excavations in Çatalhöyük under James Mellaart as an expert on obsidian. In 1965 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the Neolithic Age in the Cyclades.

In 1972 Renfrew was a professor at the University of Southampton. In 1973 he published the much acclaimed work Before Civilisation: The Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe, in which he questions the assumption that prehistoric cultural innovation in the Middle East had arisen and had subsequently spread through Europe. In 1983 he became Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. He held until his retirement in 2004, the site. In 1990 he became director of the McDonald Institute at the University of Cambridge, an institute for archaeological research.

Renfrew is since 1965 married to Jane M. Ewbank and has three children.

Research priorities

→ Main article Anatolia hypothesis, Cognitive Archaeology

Colin Renfrew has emerged in the 1960s New Archaeology - also known as Processual Archaeology - decisively shaped. Renfrew dealt, in addition to his early work on the early cultural development, especially in the Aegean Sea, in recent years the problem of the relationship and spread of languages. He joined the " Indo-European proto-language " with the Neolithization Europe. He criticized the formulated Marija Gimbutas of Kurgan hypothesis and explains the spread of Indo-European languages ​​to Europe instead by its Anatolian hypothesis.

As a PhD student he made in 1963 the first Survey of Kavos field on the Cycladic island of Keros and directed 1978/88 together with Christos Doumas the largest to date excavation of Kavos. The award of the Balzan Prize in 2004 enabled him to organize using the prize money once again a large excavation. With the support of the University of Cambridge, the Institute of Aegean Prehistory ( instap ), the British Academy, the British School at Athens and several foundations and associations he could in the years 2006 to 2008, three excavation campaigns in Kavos field in the west of the island of Keros and carry on the upstream island Daskalio. They provided excellent results, so by far the largest hoard of Cycladic civilization and the largest settlement of the Keros -Syros culture.

Memberships

Colin Renfrew included, among other things, the Ancient Monuments Board for England (1974-1984), the Ancient Monuments and Advisory Committee ( HMBC ) ( 1983-2002 ), the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England ( 1983-1986), the Science and Conversation panel ( HMBC ) (1983-1986 ) and the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments (England ) ( 1976-1985 ) on. He was Chairman of the Archaeological Committee ( RCHM ) ( 1979-1983 ), member of the Science-Based Archaeological Committee ( SERC ) ( 1979-1983 ) and a Trustee of the British Museum ( 1991-2001 ).

Honors

In 2003 Renfrew was awarded the European Latsis Prize, 2004 with the Balzan Prize. In 2007 he was made ​​an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1991 he was elevated to a life peer as Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, Hurlet of the District of Renfrew.

Excavations

• Sitagroi
• Phylakopi
• Quanterness on Orkney

Works

• The Emergence of Civilisation: the Cyclades and the Aegean in the Third Millennium BC. Methuen, London, 1972; re-edited and with an introduction by John Cherry, Banner Stone, Oakville, Conn.. 2010, Oxbow, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-0-9774094-7-1.
• (Ed.), The Explanation of Culture Change: Models in Prehistory. Proceedings of the conference at the University of Sheffield. Duckworth, London 1973.
• Before Civilisation, the Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe. Penguin, London 1973.
• (Ed. ), British Prehistory, A New Outline. Noyes Press, Park Ridge, NJ. and Duckworth, London 1974. An introduction for students.
• Problems in European Prehistory. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1979, ISBN 0-85224-355-3. A collection of 18 contributions.
• (Ed. with Kenneth Cooke ), Transformations: Mathematical Approaches to Culture Change. Academic Press, New York 1979, ISBN 0-12-586050-1.
• By Judson T. Chesterman and others, Investigations in Orkney. Research Reports of the Society of Antiquaries of London. Volume 38, London 1979.
• (Ed. with J. Malcolm Wagstaff ), An Iceland Polity: the Archaeology of Exploitation in Melos. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982, ISBN 0-521-23785-8.
• (Ed., with Stephen Shennan ), Ranking, Resource and Exchange. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1981, ISBN 0-521-24282-7.
• (Ed. with Michael. J. Rowlands and Barbara Abbott Segraves ), Theory and Explanation in Archaeology. The Southampton Conference. Academic Press, New York 1982, ISBN 0-12-586960-6.
• Approaches to Social Archaeology. Edinburgh University Press & Harvard University Press 1984, ISBN 0-674-04165-8.
• (Ed., with Marija Gimbutas and Ernestine S. Elster), Excavations at Sitagroi: A Prehistoric Village in Northeast Greece. Volume 1 Los Angeles, 1985, ISBN 0-917956-51-6.
• (Ed., with John F. Cherry ) Peer Polity Interaction and Socio- Political Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986, ISBN 0-521-11222-2.
• Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of the Indo-European Origins, Cape, London, 1987, ISBN 0-224-02495-7.
• With Paul Bahn, Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice. Thames and Hudson, London 1993, ISBN 0-500-27867-9.
• (Ed., with Ezra BW Zubrow ), The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994, ISBN 0-521-45620-7.
• (Ed., with Chris Scarre ), Cognition and Material Culture: the Archaeology of Symbolic StorageCognition and material culture, collection of contributions for a conference at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge in September 1996, The Archaeology of External Symbolic Storage: the Dialectic in between Artefact and Cognition: the archeology of symbolic storage. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge 1998, ISBN 0-9519420-6-9.
• (Ed. with David Nettle ), Nostratic: Examining a Linguistic Macro Family. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge 1999, ISBN 1-902937-00-7.
• Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership, the Ethical Crisis in Archaeology. Duckworth, London 2000, ISBN 0-7156-3034-2.
• (Ed., with Katie Boyle ), Archaeogenetics: DNA and the population prehistory of Europe. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 1-902937-08-2.
• (Ed., with April McMahon and Larry Trask ), Time Depth in Historical Linguistics. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge 2001, ISBN 1-902937-06-6.
• With Paul Bahn, Archaeology Essentials. Theories, Methods, and Practice. Thames & Hudson, London 2007, ISBN 0 - 500-28637 -X. German: basic knowledge of archeology. Theories, methods, practice, translated by Helmut Schareika University Press ( WBG ), Darmstadt 2009, royalties edition Philip of Saverne, Mainz 2009, ISBN 978-3-8053-3948-3

Quote

• "The whole carefully constructed building collapses and the progress of history the standard textbooks must be discarded. " (Before civilization, chap. 5, The Collapse of the Traditional Framework).