Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, (born 25 July 1937) is a British

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

, paleolinguist and

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

peer noted for his work on

radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

, the prehistory of languages,

archaeogenetics Archaeogenetics is the study of ancient DNA using various molecular genetic methods and DNA resources. This form of genetic analysis can be applied to human, animal, and plant specimens. Ancient DNA can be extracted from various fossilized specimen ...

neuroarchaeology Neuroarchaeology is a sub-discipline of archaeology that uses neuroscientific data to infer things about brain form and function in human cognitive evolution. The term was first suggested and thus coined by Colin Renfrew and Lambros Malafouris. ...

, and the prevention of looting at archaeological sites. Renfrew was formerly the

Disney Professor of Archaeology The Disney Professorship of Archaeology is an endowed chair in archaeology at the University of Cambridge. It was endowed by John Disney in 1851 with a donation of £1,000, followed by a further £2,500 bequest upon his death in 1857. Disney Pro ...

at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and Director of the

McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research is a research institute of the University of Cambridge in England. History The institute was established in 1990 through a benefaction from the late Dr Daniel McLean McDonald, a successful ind ...

and is now a Senior Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

Early life and education

Renfrew was educated at St Albans School, Hertfordshire (where one of the houses is named after him) and from 1956 to 1958 did

National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The l ...

in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

. He then went up to

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...

, where he read Natural Sciences then

Archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

and

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

, graduating in 1962. He was elected president of

Cambridge Union The Cambridge Union Society, also known as the Cambridge Union, is a debating and free speech society in Cambridge, England, and the largest society in the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1815, it is the oldest continuously running debati ...

in 1961. In 1965 he completed his PhD thesis ''

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

and

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

cultures of the

Cyclades The Cyclades (; el, Κυκλάδες, ) are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The nam ...

and their external relations''; in the same year he married Jane M. Ewbank.

Academic

In 1965, Renfrew was appointed to the post of lecturer in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Sheffield. Between 1968 and 1970, he directed excavations at

Sitagroi Sitagroi ( el, Σιταγροί) is a village and a former municipality in the Drama regional unit, East Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality Prosotsani, of which it is a municipal ...

, Greece. In the 1968 Sheffield Brightside by-election he unsuccessfully contested this parliamentary constituency on behalf of the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

. In that year he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, in 1970 was elected Fellow of the

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland is the senior antiquarian body of Scotland, with its headquarters in the National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh. The Society's aim is to promote the cultural heritage of Scotland. The usua ...

and in 2000 elected an Honorary Fellow of the

. In 1972 Renfrew became Professor of Archaeology at the

University of Southampton , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

, succeeding

Barry Cunliffe Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe, (born 10 December 1939), known as Barry Cunliffe, is a British archaeologist and academic. He was Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford from 1972 to 2007. Since 2007, he has been an Emeri ...

. During his time at

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

he directed excavations at Quanterness in Orkney and

Phylakopi Phylakopi ( el, Φυλακωπή), located at the northern coast of the island of Milos, is one of the most important Bronze Age settlements in the Aegean and especially in the Cyclades. The importance of Phylakopi is in its continuity throughout ...

on the island of Milos, Greece. In 1973 Renfrew published ''Before Civilisation: The Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe'' in which he challenged the assumption that prehistoric cultural innovation originated in the

Near East The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...

and then spread to Europe. He also excavated with

Marija Gimbutas Marija Gimbutas ( lt, Marija Gimbutienė, ; January 23, 1921 – February 2, 1994) was a Lithuanian archaeologist and anthropologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of " Old Europe" and for her Kurgan hypothesis, ...

at Sitagroi. In 1980 Renfrew was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. In 1981 he was elected to the

Disney Professorship of Archaeology The Disney Professorship of Archaeology is an endowed chair in archaeology at the University of Cambridge. It was endowed by John Disney in 1851 with a donation of £1,000, followed by a further £2,500 bequest upon his death in 1857. Disney Pro ...

in the

, a post he held until his retirement. In 1990 Renfrew was appointed as the founding Director of the

. In 1987, he published ''Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of the Indo-European Origins'', a book on the

Proto-Indo-Europeans The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a hypothetical prehistoric population of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the ancestor of the Indo-European languages according to linguistic reconstruction. Knowledge of them comes chiefly from t ...

. His "

Anatolian hypothesis The Anatolian hypothesis, also known as the Anatolian theory or the sedentary farmer theory, first developed by British people, British Archaeology, archaeologist Colin Renfrew in 1987, proposes that the dispersal of Proto-Indo-Europeans origina ...

" posited that this group lived 2,000 years before the

Kurgan A kurgan is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into much of Central Asi ...

s, in

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

, later diffusing to Greece, then Italy, Sicily, Corsica, the Mediterranean coast of France, Spain, and Portugal. Another branch migrated along the fertile river valleys of the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

and

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

into central and northern Europe. He developed the

, which argues that

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...

, the reconstructed ancestor of the

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

, originated approximately 9,000 years ago in

and moved with the spread of farming throughout the Mediterranean and into central and northern Europe. This hypothesis contradicted

Kurgan hypothesis The Kurgan hypothesis (also known as the Kurgan theory, Kurgan model, or steppe theory) is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe and par ...

, which states that Proto-Indo-European was spread by a

migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

of peoples from the

Pontic–Caspian steppe The Pontic–Caspian steppe, formed by the Caspian steppe and the Pontic steppe, is the steppeland stretching from the northern shores of the Black Sea (the Pontus Euxinus of antiquity) to the northern area around the Caspian Sea. It extends ...

approximately 6,000 years ago. From 1987 to 1991 he co-directed excavations at Markiani on

Amorgos Amorgos ( el, Αμοργός, ; ) is the easternmost island of the Cyclades island group and the nearest island to the neighboring Dodecanese island group in Greece. Along with 16 neighboring islets, the largest of which (by land area) is Niko ...

and at Dhaskalio Kavos,

Keros Keros ( el, Κέρος; anciently, Keria or Kereia ( grc, Κέρεια) is an uninhabited and unpopulated Greece, Greek island in the Cyclades about southeast of Naxos Island, Naxos. Administratively it is part of the Communities and Municipali ...

, Greece. Renfrew's work in using the archaeological record as the basis for understanding the ancient mind was foundational to the field of evolutionary cognitive archaeology. Renfrew and his student,

Lambros Malafouris Lambros Malafouris is a Greek-British cognitive archaeologist who has pioneered the application of concepts from the philosophy of mind to the material record. He is Professor of Cognitive and Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Oxfor ...

, coined the phrase

to describe an archaeology of mind. In 1996, Renfrew formulated a sapient paradox, that can be formulated as ""why there was such a long gap between emergence of genetically and anatomically modern humans and the development of complex behaviors?" Renfrew served as

Master Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...

from 1986 until 1997. In 2004 he retired from the Disney Professorship and is now a Senior Fellow at the McDonald Institute. From 2006 to 2008 he directed new excavations on the Cycladic Island of

, and is currently co-director of the Keros Island Survey.

Positions, awards and accolades

*Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...

(1980) *Renfrew was created a

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

on 24 June 1991 as

Baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...

Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, of

Hurlet Hurlet (or The Hurlet) is a small semi-rural district and former mining village,Hurlet
at

Renfrew Renfrew (; sco, Renfrew; gd, Rinn Friù) is a town west of Glasgow in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It is the historic county town of Renfrewshire. Called the "Cradle of the Royal Stewarts" for its early link with Scotland's former ...

. *Foreign Associate to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

of the USA 1996. *

Balzan Prize The International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organizations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the br ...

, given in Prehistoric Archaeology for 2004. *Chair, Managing Council for the

British School at Athens , image = Image-Bsa athens library.jpg , image_size = 300px , image_upright= , alt= , caption = The library of the BSA , latin_name= , motto= , founder = The Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, called the foundation meeti ...

, since 2004. *Visiting Scholar, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology,

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, 2005–06. *Member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

since 2006. *Honorary degrees from the Universities of Sheffield, Athens, Southampton, Liverpool, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Kent, London and Lima.

Books

*Renfrew, A.C., 1972, ''The Emergence of Civilisation: The Cyclades and the Aegean in The Third Millennium BC'', London. *Renfrew, A.C., 1973, ''Before Civilisation, the Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe'', London: Pimlico. * Renfrew, A.C. and Kenneth L. Cooke, eds. 1979 ''Transformations: Mathematical Approaches to Culture Change''. New York: Academic Press. *Renfrew, A.C. and Malcolm Wagstaff, eds., 1982, '' An Island Polity, the Archaeology of Exploitation in

Melos Milos or Melos (; el, label=Modern Greek, Μήλος, Mílos, ; grc, Μῆλος, Mêlos) is a volcanic Greek island in the Aegean Sea, just north of the Sea of Crete. Milos is the southwesternmost island in the Cyclades group. The ''Venus d ...

'', Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

. *Renfrew, Colin, 1984, '' Approaches to Social Archeology'', Edinburgh:

Edinburgh University Press Edinburgh University Press is a scholarly publisher of academic books and journals, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. History Edinburgh University Press was founded in the 1940s and became a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Edinburgh ...

. *Renfrew, A.C., ed. 1985, '' The Archaeology of Cult, the Sanctuary at

'', London:

Thames & Hudson Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...

. *Colin Renfrew,

and Ernestine S. Elster, eds. 1986. ''Excavations at Sitagroi, a prehistoric village in northeast Greece''. Vol. 1. Los Angeles : Institute of Archaeology, University of California. *Renfrew, A.C., 1987, ''Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins'', London: Pimlico. *Renfrew, A.C. and Ezra B. W. Zubrow, eds. 1994, ''The ancient mind: elements of cognitive archaeology''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Renfrew, A.C. and

Paul Bahn Paul G. Bahn, (born 29 July 1953)'Bahn, Paul (1953-)'
''Encyclopedia.com''. ...

, 1991, ''Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice'', London: Thames & Hudson. . (Sixth edition 2012) * Renfrew, A.C., 2000, ''Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership: The Ethical Crisis in Archaeology'', London: Duckworth. *Renfrew, A.C., 2003, ''Figuring It Out: The Parallel Visions of Artists and Archaeologists'', London: Thames & Hudson. *Ernestine S. Elster and Colin Renfrew, eds., 2003. ''Prehistoric Sitagroi: Excavations in Northeast Greece, 1968–1970''. Vol. 2: ''The Final Report''. Los Angeles, CA: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. Monumenta archaeologica 20. *Renfrew, A.C., and Paul Bahn, eds. ''Archaeology: The Key Concepts''. London: Routledge, 2005. *Renfrew, A.C., 2008, ''Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind'', Modern Library. *Matsumura S., Forster P. and Renfrew C., eds., 2008, ''Simulations, Genetics and Human Prehistory'', Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archeological Research.

Articles

*"Models of change in language and archaeology", ''Transactions of the Philological Society'' 87 (1989): 103–55. *"Archaeology, genetics and linguistic diversity", ''Man'' 27 (1992): 445–78. *"Time depth, convergence theory, and innovation in Proto-Indo-European: 'Old Europe' as a PIE linguistic area", ''

Journal of Indo-European Studies The ''Journal of Indo-European Studies'' (JIES) is a peer-reviewed academic journal of Indo-European studies. The journal publishes papers in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, mythology and linguistics relating to the cultural history of ...

'' 27 (1999): 257–93. *"'Indo-European' designates languages: not pots and not institutions", ''Antiquity'' 79 (2005): 692–5. *"Archaeogenetics", in ''Archaeology: The Key Concepts'', eds. Colin Renfrew & Paul Bahn. London: Routledge, 2005, pp. 16–20. *"Phylogenetic network analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genomes", ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'', April 8, 2020

References

External links

Renfrew's page at the McDonald InstituteBiographical interviews
from

Web of Stories Web of Stories is an online collection of thousands of autobiographical video-stories. Web of Stories, originally known as Science Archive, was set up to record the life stories of scientists. When it expanded to include the lives of authors, mov ...

(video)
Interview
with

Alan Macfarlane Alan Donald James Macfarlane (born 20 December 1941 in Shillong, Meghalaya, India) is an anthropologist and historian, and a Professor Emeritus of King's College, Cambridge. He is the author or editor of 20 books and numerous articles on th ...

(video) * (video)
Lecture on looting and illicit antiquities
(MP3) {{DEFAULTSORT:Renfrew Of Kaimsthorn, Colin Renfrew, Baron 1937 births Living people People from St Albans People from Stockton-on-Tees People educated at St Albans School, Hertfordshire Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Presidents of the Cambridge Union English archaeologists Academics of the University of Sheffield Academics of the University of Southampton British cognitive scientists Fellows of Jesus College, Cambridge Masters of Jesus College, Cambridge Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the British Academy Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Conservative Party (UK) life peers Paleolinguists Disney Professors of Archaeology Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Archaeogeneticists Members of the American Philosophical Society