Geoffrey Hext Sutherland Bushnell, FBA (31 May 1903 – 26 December 1978) was 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 ...

. He was head of the

Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, also known as MAA, at the University of Cambridge houses the university's collections of local antiquities, together with archaeological and ethnographic artefacts from around the world. The museum ...

1948–1970 and fellow of

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Corpus Christi College (full name: "The College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary", often shortened to "Corpus"), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. From the late 14th century through to the early 19th century ...

, since 1963. He was the son of an Anglican clergyman and was educated at

Wellington College Wellington College may refer to: *Wellington College, Berkshire, an independent school in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England ** Wellington College International Shanghai ** Wellington College International Tianjin *Wellington College, Wellington, New Z ...

and

Downing College, Cambridge Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 650 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the olde ...

, where he took his BA in Natural Science in 1925, specialising in geology. His interest lay in ancient America and he pursued it by becoming an oil geologist in Ecuador with Anglo-Ecuadorian Oilfields, for whom he worked from 1926 to 1938. His spare-time fieldwork formed the basis of his PhD thesis, awarded in 1948. After serving during the War with the Lincolnshire Regiment and the Royal Engineers, he became in 1948, Curator of Cambridge University's Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, which he remained until he retired in 1970. He was elected a Fellow of Corpus Christi College in 1963, became Reader in New World Archaeology in 1966, and was elected FBA in 1970. He married Patricia Louise Egerton Bushnell, née Ruck (5 February 1912 – 5 April 2009) in 1936, and they are buried together in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge.

References

* A.G. Woodhouse, "A History of Corpus Christi College Cambridge from 1952 to 1994" (1995), pp 94–6. * ‘BUSHNELL, Geoffrey Hext Sutherland’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 200
accessed 5 March 2013

External links

* 1903 births 1978 deaths British archaeologists Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 20th-century archaeologists {{UK-archaeologist-stub