The making of a radical archaeologist: The early years of Vere Gordon Childe

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Derricourt, Robin
Copyright Year	2014
Abstract	Vere Gordon Childe is the most prominent archaeologist produced by Australia to date. His writing influenced two generations of the public’s understanding of the human past, alongside the academic interpretation and teaching of prehistory, while his work has stimulated more professional conferences and critiques than any other in the discipline. This paper explores how close Childe came to taking a different path, outlining the circumstances that led him to abandon archaeology and pursue a potentially high profile political career. This began and ended amid opposition and controversy, when external circumstances forced him out of politics and, at the age of 30, back to archaeology. This account of the details of Childe’s early life, motivation, passions and skills draws on unpublished archives held in the State Records of New South Wales, and other early sources, together with the disparate materials that have become available since the biography of Childe published in 1981.
Starting Page	54
Ending Page	64
Page Count	11
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
DOI	10.1080/03122417.2014.11682019
Volume Number	79
Alternate Webpage(s)	http://www.standrewscollege.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/College-Gordon-Childe-Derricourt.pdf
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2014.11682019
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article