Ian Richard Hodder (born 23 November 1948, in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

) is a British archaeologist and pioneer of postprocessualist theory in

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 landsca ...

that first took root among his students and in his own work between 1980–1990. At this time he had such students as

Henrietta Moore Dame Henrietta Louise Moore, (born 18 May 1957) is a British social anthropologist. She is the director of the Institute for Global Prosperity at University College, London (UCL), part of the Bartlett, UCL's Faculty of the Built Environment. ...

, Ajay Pratap, Nandini Rao,

Mike Parker Pearson Michael Parker Pearson, (born 26 June 1957) is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of the Neolithic British Isles, Madagascar and the archaeology of death and burial. A professor at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, he previousl ...

, Paul Lane, John Muke, Sheena Crawford,

Nick Merriman Nick Merriman (born 6 June 1960) is the director of the Horniman Museum and Gardens in south London. Previously he was the director of the Manchester Museum in Manchester, England. Prior to that, Merriman worked at the Museum of London and Unive ...

Michael Shanks Michael Garrett Shanks (born December 15, 1970) is a Canadian actor, writer and director. He is best known for his role as Daniel Jackson in the long-running military science fiction television series '' Stargate SG-1'' and as Charles Harris ...

and

Christopher Tilley __NOTOC__ Chris Tilley is a British archaeologist known for his contributions to postprocessualist archaeological theory. He is currently a Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology at University College London. Tilley obtained his PhD in Anth ...

. , he is Dunlevie Family Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University in the United States.

Early life and education

Hodder was born on 23 November 1948 in

, England, to Professor Bramwell William "Dick" Hodder and his wife Noreen Victoria Hodder. He was brought up in Singapore and in Oxford, England. He was educated at

Magdalen College School, Oxford Magdalen College School (MCS) is a public school (English independent day school) in Oxford, England, for boys aged seven to eighteen and for girls in the sixth form. It was founded by William Waynflete about 1480 as part of Magdalen College ...

, then an all-boys independent school. He studied prehistoric archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology of the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

, graduating with a first class

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

(BA) in 1971. He then studied at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and was awarded a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(PhD) degree by the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

in 1975: his supervisor was David L. Clarke and his thesis was titled "''Some Applications of Spatial Analysis in Archaeology''".

Academic career

He was a lecturer at the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

from 1974 to 1977. He then returned to the

, where he was an assistant lecturer (1977 to 1981) and then lecturer (1981 to 1990) in archaeology. From 1990 to 2000, he was director of the

Cambridge Archaeological Unit Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became ...

and a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of Darwin College, Cambridge. The university appointed him

Reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...

in Prehistory in 1990 and Professor of Archaeology in 1996. In 1999, Hodder moved to Stanford University in the United States. He became Dunlevie Family Professor in 2002. Since 1993, Hodder and an international team of archaeologists have carried out new research and excavation of the 9,000-year-old

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 p ...

site of

Çatalhöyük Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' "tumulus") is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from app ...

in central

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 ...

(modern Turkey). He is Director of the Çatalhöyük Archaeological Project which aims to conserve the site, put it into context, and present it to the public. He has endeavoured to explore the effects of non- positivistic methods in archaeology, which includes providing each excavator with the opportunity to record his or her own individual interpretation of the site. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1996. In the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours he was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) for services to archaeology and UK/Turkey relations.

Selected publications

*''Spatial analysis in archaeology'' (1976, with C. Orton) *''Symbols in action. Ethnoarchaeological studies of material culture'' (1982) *''The Present Past. An introduction to anthropology for archaeologists'' (1982) *''Symbolic and Structural Archaeology'' (1982) *''Reading the Past. Current approaches to interpretation in archaeology'' (1986) (revised 1991 and, with Scott Hutson, 2003) *''The Domestication of Europe: Structure and contingency in Neolithic societies'' (1990) *''Theory and Practice in Archaeology'' (1992) (Collected papers) *''On the Surface: Çatalhöyük 1993–95'' (1996), as editor, Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. . *''The Archaeological Process. An introduction'' (1999) *''Archaeological Theory Today'' (2001) *''Archaeology beyond dialogue'' (2004) (Collected papers) *''The Leopard's Tale: Revealing the Mysteries of Çatalhöyük'' (2006) *''Religion in the Emergence of Civilization. Çatalhöyük as a case study'' (2010) *''Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things'' (2012) *''Where Are We Heading? The Evolution of Humans and Things'' (2018)

References

External links

Home page for Ian HodderHome page at Stanford University, Department of AnthropologyHome page at Stanford Archaeology Center
with the Society for California Archaeology in 1999
Interview with Ian Hodder March 2017 "Ian Hodder: Çatalhöyük, Religion & Templeton’s 25%"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hodder, Ian 1948 births Living people British archaeologists Academics from Bristol Alumni of the University of London Academics of the University of Leeds Academics of the University of Cambridge Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge Fellows of the British Academy Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Fellows of Darwin College, Cambridge People educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford

Early life and education

Academic career

Selected publications

References

Further reading

External links